Attitudes of men towards women in much ado about nothing essay

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Independent, assertive, unruly women commanded attention on stage; the traditional pattern of feminine behaviour was under strain.

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Women were supposed to be silent, gentle, passive and submissive but Queen Elizabeth I herself projected an ambiguous male-female identity. The erosion of traditional gender ideologies created anxieties about the subversion of the social order.

Loquacious, insubordinate, independent women were regarded with interest and suspicion. Comedy was a way of exploring such anxieties and diffusing them with laughter. In the patriarchal society of Much Ado conventional codes of honour, camaraderie and a sense of superiority to women regulate masculine loyalties.

Beatrice disrupts the conventional gender polarities, urging Hero to defy her father and putting Benedick on his mettle, although her role is ambiguous as she also yearns to exercise male power to avenge Hero. Yet he breaks with his comrades when Hero is slandered and allies himself with Beatrice.

He and Beatrice adopt an equivocal position in relation to the romantic conventions: Shakespearean men are flawed with pride; his women are capable of enduring love. His heroines often unite harmoniously the strengths commonly associated with one sex or the other — assertive but not aggressive, independent but not insular, erotic but not sensual, warm-hearted but without sentimentality, rational but sympathetic.

Although Much Ado may lack a female exemplar of moral virtue, it almost champions sexual equality and female liberation. In the first three scenes, male characters continually put the female down.

Leonato orders Hero to prepare to accept whoever courts her.

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• Attitudes in Love and Marriage in "Much Ado About Nothing" | Essay Example

Conventionally submissive, Hero refrains from answering. Don Pedro claims that his motive for match-making is benevolent — Beatrice and Benedick are well-suited. It might also be a ploy to bring a critic of male privilege into line with the conventional patriarchal arrangement. Equally, although Benedick comments with neurotic repetitiveness, on female sexual lightness, he is endowing women with extraordinary power.

So circumscribed by convention are married women that sexual infidelity would appear to be their only route to self-assertion in marriage.

They cannot, therefore, know and empathise with women. Claudio denounces Hero, ironicallyfor not appearing to be all she seemed, an impossibility anyway, since he had idealised her.

Female roles in Messina are circumscribed — virgin, wife and mother, or whore. Beatrice has been the favourite of audiences, whether laughed at or with for transgressing the gender code to scold dominant man or for abandoning her pose of disdain and melting into a wife.

Beatrice jokes about stuffing, being put down to become the mother of fools and even taking up the running joke on horns. In her wit she enters the male domain, not concealing her knowledge of sexual love and infidelity, though confident herself in the integrity of her own heart and the wholesomeness of her desires.

She is not self-effacing; conversation revolves around her. Her courage in standing up for herself in an awkwardly dependent social position is laudable. She offends against propriety with a genteel charm. The male ambiance of the play questions assumptions of male privilege and superiority.

Love and marriage are not in themselves deprecated. Beatrice, who in the opening scene beat the messenger verbally into submission, is tricked into loving the disdained misogynist.

He, a notorious womaniser, conjures up a debased image of woman. Beatrice is no more flattering in her depiction of the dullness of contemporary man. Yet the relationship Beatrice requires is rooted in passionate mutual commitment which transcends gender limitations: By allying himself with Beatrice through fellow-feeling rather than form, he acts from sympathy rather than principle and attains heroic stature himself.

Beatrice will not let habit deaden their marriage. That they have been fooled into love is immaterial. Their union is a way of living with and transcending the gender stereotypes of their society.

Question Is Shakespeare defeatist or conservative in his presentation of the situation of women?Much Ado About Nothing Essay: Love Found and Conflict Resolved - Love Found and Conflict Resolved in Much Ado About Nothing Much Ado About Nothing is a lighthearted play that Shakespeare wrote between and Shakespeare's evolving attitudes towards women.

By Jane O to Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing.

Both women are being wooed, but while the sparks fly verbally between Beatrice and Benedick. Don't be fooled by the reviews claiming this is an artsy giallo.

This is a surreal and extremely tactile movie about female sexuality and senses, with no exploitation, by way of an homage to classic Italian horror.

The Representation of Women in Much Ado About Nothing The female characters who are in the play are all present and involved in Act2 Scene1, which makes it the perfect situation to describe Shakespeare's portrayal of women in "Much Ado About Nothing". All the latest news, reviews, pictures and video on culture, the arts and entertainment.

‘Much Ado About Nothing’ is no exception and presents this plot structure through the pairings of Claudio and Hero, and Benedick and Beatrice. These couples illustrate two different types of love, and their portrayed experiences are revealing of Elizabethan attitudes and beliefs regarding love.