How does Shakespeare present relationships between men and woman in Much Ado About Nothing, and how might a modern audience respond to this?

The first 200 words of this essay...

How does Shakespeare present relationships between men and woman in Much Ado About Nothing, and how might a modern audience respond to this?

The purpose of this essay is to show how Shakespeare portrays relationships and how he uses the theme of love and marriage through out the play. I will also analyse how a modern audience would interpret the play.

Much Ado About Nothing shows us different sorts of relationships between men and woman these mainly being depicted in the form of Beatrice and Benedick's relationship, which is of unrequited love, and then there is Claudio and Hero whose relationship is that of courtly love. The basic pattern of romantic comedy is that love creates discord in society. We can see this from the beginning of the play when the troubles of war is over and the characters have time to relax, and so their thoughts turn to amusement and love.

One would argue that Claudio's love to Hero is true and the of pureness, but I believe that Claudio's so called 'love for Hero' is actually mistaken for 'lust', also that his love for Hero is based on a physical attraction,