How Does Shakespeare Contrast the Relationship between Claudio and Hero to that of Beatrice and Benedick in "Much Ado About Nothing"? How might an Elizabethan Audience view these characters?

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How Does Shakespeare Contrast the Relationship between Claudio and

Hero to that of Beatrice and Benedick?

How might an Elizabethan Audience view these characters?

Much Ado about Nothing is a play with different discourses on the nature of love.

The film turns on the Claudio and Hero love plot, a young love based on obsession, even though this is less interesting than the Beatrice and Benedict sub-plot, which celebrates a more mature love which is based on independence and intelligence. This plot include ‘testing’ of love: Which we are shown by Beatrice demanding that Benedict challenge’s Claudio and Don Pedro for their role in Hero’s humiliation, and by doing so, Benedict chooses love for Beatrice over loyalty to friends, after which she then accepts him in marriage.

 

Concluding to this many critics believe and have said that the plot of Much Ado About Nothing shares significant parts with that of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Saying that the plot which concerns the relationship between Claudio and Hero, in contrast to the parallel plot of Beatrice and Benedick, which has much in common with Shakespeare's later plays (which are often called romances or tragicomedies).

In The 1400’s the Renaissance movement began in Italy, and spread to the rest of Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Renaissance movement had a major role in every day life.

Women where not worthy of their freedom strengthens or could be highly educated. Women were seen as a means of exchanging honour and property between men.

Marriages were arranged by the daughter’s fathers and were based upon wealth and power and not love like in today’s society.

Shakespeare makes some interesting comments on women’s roles and societies class roles in the Renaissance period, and he emphasizes this by potraying the women in white floaty dresses. QUOTE

Symbolizing the innocence and purity of the household and in particular Hero in the play.

However, the men are potrayed in black leather trousers and white shirts in a kind of military style outfit. Resembeling power and leadership.

Through out the play Hero is presented to us as a one-dimensional character and a well-behaved Renaissance daughter of Leonato. Which is what the Victorian audience would have expected. Because they could relate this to there own lives and the period of time.

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Beatrice, Hero’s cousin is somewhat different and is an unexpected and frowned upon character to the audience. She is a modern woman who is independent and refuses to be identified as a woman in a male-dominated society. Beatrice's pride makes her different from the other characters and both the audience notice this, as well as Hero:

“Nature never fram'd a woman's heart
of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice.
Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes,
Misprising what they look on, and her wit
Values itself so highly that to her
All matter else...”

This type of character was not ...

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