During Shakespeare's period, social status was the main focus of life. Everything was made around social status. Who was acceptable to talk to, who was acceptable to marriage, and who even how they treated others. Women had to live to strict ways of life. The father controls the daughter, she is accepted to do as her father says and what he pleases. A women must always have a man in charge of her, the father picks out her husband to which the future husband will help higher the social status that they have already. Shakespeare uses Hero and Beatrice to demonstrate the dangers of love at first sight vs. the benefits of a relationship based on mutual understating.
In the beginning of the play Hero is the women you were expected to be in Shakespeare day, she was loyal and obedient to her father and did what she was told. She fell in love with Claudio at first sight making her innocently in love. Hero and Claudio were in the stage of a relationship called the “honeymoon” phase where they didn’t know and/or realize all the good and bad quality's they both have. When Claudio was only talking with Benedick, he tells him that “In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on”. It would seem that this love Claudio has for Hero is purely the result of, first attraction on looks and, second the need to marry a high status and virtuous woman which what Hero was. Claudio could be faking his love and want for Hero but he see the qualities in her to make decent wife. Claudio told Leonato that he is ready to marry her only after their first meeting and then proceeds to ask Leonato for her hand in marriage. One of the negatives of love at first sight is you don't know anything about the other person, you might jump into situat...
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...atrice tells him ‘I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest’. This is a wonderful contrast to all the deception it has taken to bring them together with a relationship that will not fail.
Looking at the play, Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare makes the point that true love is achieved with understanding, trust, and commitment by examining the relationships of the contrasting sets of lovers: the love at first sight kind of relationship of Hero and Claudio, and the deeper relationship of Beatrice and Benedick.Claudio and Hero’s relationship has at this point in the play disintegrated due to deception and an innate lack of trust. Deception unquestionably plays a significant role in this positive resolution of their relationship: Benedick and Beatrice have ultimately discovered an emotionally open relationship as a direct result of deception.
In addition, this relationship illustrates the "cuckold" fear that is very pertinent during Shakespeare's time. Claudio is easily wooed into believing Don John's fabrication about Hero's infidelity. Since women were considered possessions, this infidelity is the ultimate betrayal and a mortal wound to Claudio's self esteem. In reality, Hero had remained the chaste and virtuous model of the Elizabethan woman. Source: Hays, Janice. "Those "soft and delicate desires": Much Ado and the Distrust of Women". Lenz, Carolyn Ruth Swift, Greene, Gayle, and Neely, Carol Thomas Ed., The Woman's Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. University of Illinois Press: Chicago, 1980.
In today's society, true love can be described as someone buying a sparkly present for the significant other, celebrating their special anniversary with a beautiful getaway from their hectic life, or even risking anything in the world for that one person. These are all real examples of true love but these are also the things that Claudio didn’t do to show his affection and love towards Hero. Instead, he chose to humiliate her on their wedding day, he didn’t trust her to stay faithful until marriage, and even “killed” her. In the play, Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare, the main characters, Hero, and Claudio, are not truly in love and their actions display that.
“Love goes by haps; Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps” (Shakespeare pg. 45). One of Shakespeare’s most famous plays is Much Ado About Nothing and it specifically shows the tragic flaws of each and every character throughout the story. One character that will be mainly focused on that’s the most tragically flawed, is Claudio because he’s passionate about his love for Hero and how he’s easily manipulated.
...ut Nothing is an extremely fast paced and witty play, Shakespeare very much has love as his central theme. There are two very different, yet equally compelling relationships that are explored in depth. They run through the play concurrently, allowing the reader to compare and contrast the different facets and complexities between the two. The playwright’s rich understanding of relationships, and particularly his understanding of the fact that love is not always as formulaic as many a writer would have us believe, makes for a fascinating read. In fact, by directly comparing a realistic couple, full of real world self doubt and a fear of rejection with a very stereotypical love-at-first-sight type of relationship, Shakespeare is possibly making the point that love and relationships have more depth than is often given credit.
As mentioned, the act of Claudio forfeiting Hero’s hand in marriage and denouncing her at their wedding ceremony due to her unloyalty, not only proves that a woman’s virtue is critical to his “love” for her but also reveals a deeper meaning to the play as a whole at various degrees. Men are only satisfied when they completely dominate a woman. This means not only obtaining her heart, but her virginity and virtue as well. In this time period, their wives were seen as their property and a man would rather throw his whole fiance away than tread on previously marked territory. If Claudio genuinely loved Hero in the first place, he would have confronted her about the situation in private before he unjustly demolished her publicly based on a loose
In conclusion, gender role in Elizabethan era is very complex with respect to women’s role. Men are the masters of the home and society; they preside over every aspect of life. They are however, expected to take care of their family and also be actively involved in politics, war, and they inherit their father’s properties. Women role varied a according to their social status. All women were raised to be subservient to men. Unlike upper class women, lower class women were denied any kind of education. And all women are expected to get married and bear children. The qualities Shakespeare gave Beatrice are very significant because it contrasts traditional Elizabethan theater. Gender role has evolved over time, especially women’s role and it will continue to evolve as long as there are women like Beatrice around.
Fate or choice? Choice or fate? How does one separate these ideals? Can one? Shakespeare could not. Nor can we. Fate and choice are so intertwined that our choices determine our fate, and our fate determines our choices. William Shakespeare trusts the audience to scrutinize whether it is fate or choice that rules our human life. Shakespeare aptly conveys this oxymoron (with which people have been dealing for ages) through the evidence and structure of his play, Romeo and Juliet.
In the time of William Shakespeare where courtship and romance were often overshadowed by the need to marry for social betterment and to ensure inheritance, emerges a couple from Much Ado About Nothing, Hero and Claudio, who must not only grow as a couple, who faces deception and slander, but as individuals. Out of the couple, Claudio, a brave soldier respected by some of the highest ranked men during his time, Prince Don Pedro and the Governor of Messina, Leonato, has the most growing to do. Throughout the play, Claudio’s transformation from an immature, love-struck boy who believes gossip and allows himself to easily be manipulated is seen when he blossoms into a mature young man who admits to his mistakes and actually has the capacity to love the girl he has longed for.
Hero is resembled by Claudio as a “well-mannered young lady” who is content with her own unchangeable, elegant personality. This quote shows Hero is matron, and consistent of her elegance throughout the book and it is because of her personality that causes Claudio to be drawn to her. Claudio on the other hand, admits to Don Pedro that he is “hasty in (his) emotions”, which resembles his skeptical and uncertain personality when it comes to actually admitting his love for Hero. This evidence supports how Claudio is unsure of himself, and because of Claudio’s doubtful and unsure qualities he is quick to believe Don John when he says Hero has been unfaithful. Nevertheless, Claudio and Hero’s differences in the play it stirs up the plot and conflict, but it is their similarities and strong willed love that draws them together in the
However, Beatrice’s ‘emotional gravity,’¹ eventually leads the importance of her role to go beyond that of Hero’s, whilst still maintaining the humorous aspect essential to her character. It would seem definite that Shakespeare is making a criticism of the patriarchal and misogyny that resided in society at that time which is expressed through Beatrice who defies her social expectations. She is a strong feminine role model
Despite Claudio asking for forgiveness and ‘professing his love’ to Hero, his previous actions still define his character. His actions were unjust and brutal, and he was disrespectful towards Hero. During their wedding ceremony, Claudio verbally harassed Hero. He made many unkind comments about her, most of which were meant to slut-shame her. Claudio announces that he is “not to be married, not to knit my soul to an approvèd wanton” (Act 4, Scene 1, Lines 41-42). In this quote, Claudio tells Leonato he will not marry Hero because she is a ‘slut’. After a couple more degrading comments, Hero eventually faints, and Claudio leaves without regarding her well-being. After he was told that Hero had died, he still did not care— he believed she cheated so he was not sorry for what he did. Claudio was only sorrowful after he found out Hero had been framed. Claudio and Hero’s relationship will not last because he was extremely cruel towards Hero—in this case, he lacked the ‘love’ component. Claudio was very selfish and only regarded his own feelings. Furthermore, Claudio did not personally apologize to Hero, therefore she shouldn’t have forgiven him because he did not deserve
Exploring Love in Much Ado About Nothing In Much Ado About Nothing Shakespeare depicts different kinds of loving relationships - romantic love, family support and loyal friendship - and shows how various characters react to love and marriage. By exploring the effects of this powerful emotion Shakespeare highlights its universal relevance, a relevance that transcends time. The main plot of Much Ado About Nothing is that of the relationship between Claudio and Hero. Their story is a melodramatic saga concerning the realities of relationships based on love at first sight.
Throughout Act one and two, Benedick repeatedly says that he will never love a woman or get married. At some stage in the duration of the play his mindset changes. In the end he is head over heels in love for Beatrice whom he once quarreled with habitually. The turnabout in his behavior was brought about by the deceiving Claudio and Pedro who indirectly told Benedick that Beatrice loved him.
Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet in the 16th century, at a time where the role of the woman was to be subservient to men and act as a wife to their husband and a mother to their children. Women were expected to conform to the expectations of society, and were seen as possessions by their fathers and husbands. Fathers arrange their daughters’ marriages, usually for financial or social gain for the family. In Romeo and Juliet, the unfair treatment of women is conveyed through characters such as Juliet, a young girl who is growing into the expectations of society, and Lady Capulet, who represents a traditional side of love and values social position rather than men themselves. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet centres on the relationship between two young protagonists, but much of what occurs during the play is as a result of the inequality between men and women.
The theme of honour is of high significance in much ado about nothing. To have honour during shakespeare's time was very important as it earned people their respect and showed their integrity. Because everyone desired this, honour became overvalued and over exaggerated, hence why the outburst of “hero’s infidelity” almost brought the play to an end. The call off of the wedding ceremony, where Claudio rejects Hero and publicly shames her in front of her father is the climax of the play. Claudio’s intentions were to inflict as much pain as possible upon Hero, thus the play takes an abrupt turn and goes from a comedy plunging down to a tragedy. Hero's honor is then quickly called into question when it is believed she has been unfaithful to Claudio