Leonato in William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing

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...

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...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.