Gender and Honor in the Elizabethan Era

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During the 17th century or better known as the Elizabethan era, honor was imperative in order to keep ones status in society powerful. Honor was what let them hold their titles to their names. However, gender differences also played a role when differentiating honor between men and women. It is illustrated throughout the play that, “Shakespeare portrays the difference as due to gender, not character” (Daalder 1). For men, going to war and fighting in battles was what held their nobility. As for women, it was their pureness, loyalty, and virginity that. “Unmarried women were supposed to be obedient to their masters and remain virginal until marriage” (Yerebakan 8), if their honor were put at risk in any way then their honor would be lost. In …show more content…

Claudio is recognized for the battles he has fought under a vital acquaintance Don Pedro, who is a powerful nobleman. Claudio obtains the two conditions of achieving honor. He has fought in a battle and he has a powerful nobleman as an acquaintance. Being an honorable man, it will be difficult to shame him in any way. Nevertheless, when Don John tells a lie that Hero is disloyal he quickly assumes the worst. Claudio is advised to protect his honor, "Wonder not till further: go but with me to-night, you shall see her chamber-window entered, even the night before her wedding-day: if you love her then, to-morrow wed her; but it would better fit your honour to change your mind" (III.ii). If Claudio marries a woman that is disloyal before her wedding day, that would bring shame to him and his family. The nobility he had attained would then be destroyed if people would discover that he had married a woman who was not pure. Daalder claims that for these actions Claudio is in fact immature and when the events in the play test him out, he fails to prove the characterization of being immature inaccurate (2). Claudio finds him self to be an honorable man, but then is so quick to believe rumors, proving he is essentially the opposite of being

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