Leonato in William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing

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Leonato in William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing At the beginning of Much Ado About Nothing Leonato is seen to be a friendly old man, he is the governor of Messina which makes you initially think of him as an old, fair gentleman. You can see this because when the soldiers first arrive he is concerned with making his guests as comfortable as possible and their stay as pleasant as possible. He seeks to provide music for their rest, dinners for their nourishment, and parties for their diversion. This can be seen where a masked ball is held in honour of their arrival. Leonato also appears to have a good sense of humour which you can see when he teases Beatrice that she is too picky to ever be able to get married; "thou wilt never get a husband, if though be so shrewd of thy tongue." You can see that from the first Act Leonato seems to just be a kind man. However, you can also look at this opening act in a very different way if you consider Leonato's daughter Hero. When we first are introduced to Hero in the first act of the play she only says one line in the whole act. When, you look at the script Hero says very little when Leonato, her father, is around. This is probably because of the time the play was written where daughters were much more submissive when they were around their fathers. However, this could also imply that Leonato is a very intimidating man and so Hero is unsure of herself around him. I do not think that you can argue this very strongly because Leonato's hospitality suggests that he is an affable and welcoming man. The second passage that shows Leonato to be a kind and noble man is when Leonato, Don Pedro and C... ... middle of paper ... ...iving man, he asks Claudio to still be his Son-in-law even though Claudio was so horrible to Hero. However, you could argue this point the other way and say that Leonato had to forgive Claudio because he assumed Hero's guilt instantly too. I think that overall, Leonato is a good man and a kind one. When Hero was wrongly accused Leonato went completely off the hook and the side that we saw was not a good one. It think that from that side you would think that Leonato was an awful man and I would be able to agree with the assessment, but if you consider the other parts of the play and the other parts about Leonato that we have seen he has been consistently jovial and good. In my opinion I think that Leonato is a kind man but I would not like to see him become angry as we have seen that the consequences are not good.

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