Male friends they be, and as there is a strong male bond, still men in this play are unable to contain their positions, and this leads to the break of bonds. In the first half of the play the audience realise that Benedik and Claudio must remain respectful towards Don Pedro, as he is the head, the mentor, the leader. I believe that when Claudio agrees to let Don Pedro takes his place to woo , he isn’t too shy to woo the woman himself, but because he must accede to Don Pedro's authority in order to stay in Don Pedro's good favour. When Claudio believes that Don Pedro has deceived him and wooed Hero not for Claudio but for himself, he cannot drop his polite civility, even though he is full of despair. Beatrice jokes that Claudio is ‘civil as an orange,’. Claudio remains polite and nearly silent even though he is upset, telling Benedick of Don Pedro and Hero: "I wish him joy of her" Clearly, Claudio chooses his obedience to Don Pedro over his love for Hero.
Therefore Claudio believes that due to the reason Don Pedro is in much higher social class than him he must have the main priority and believes that ‘friendship is constant’ in all things except love. ‘Farewell, therefore Hero’. The man who is behind all of the deception is Don John, is unsociable and is very low in terms of society. Don John detests Don Pedro because he is jealous of his wealth and power. Don John tells him that Don Pedro is wooing Hero for himself. Don John uses Claudio and Hero. ' How know you he loves her?' This shows that Claudio is showing a sense of despair and brings confusion into his mind all because of Don John. Society can be seen as cruel and neglective as I have mentioned earlier on, it can lead to selfishness and a change in mentality, just because Don Pedro conveys more power than Claudio it doesn’t give the right to woo Hero. This wasn’t thought through by Claudio and could have let to something worse, nevertheless Claudio got Hero. We are able to see that love can change the male attitude and push them towards their feminine side. Benedick remarks on the change in Claudio by noting his change in language: ‘He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier, and now is he turned orthography’. This shows the transformation from military language to stylistic prose, and it is clear to see he is in love.
In Elizabethan England it was accepted of a young lady of a noble household that she remains a virgin until marriage. Father’s best thing to offer was a ‘virgin’ daughter. In such a world as this, daughters find their husbands in accordance with their rank and fortune and their marriage was arranged by their parents. In this play, Hero belongs to this world. A woman was legal property and was rarely expected to think for herself. Woman's honour was based upon her virginity and chaste behaviour. In contrast to this, in today's modern society, virginity is a personal choice and in western societies it does not affect one's ability to get married. Arranged marriages no longer exist in western societies and now people marry for love. In this play Hero has very little choice whether or not to marry Claudio and her father, Leanato, clearly states this. ‘If the Prince do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer’. Arranged marriages still apply in the Muslim societies. For a woman to lose her honour by having sexual relations before marriage in Elizabethan society meant that she would lose all social standing, a disaster from which she could never recover. Moreover, this loss of honour would poison the woman's whole family.
Thus, when Leonato rashly believes Claudio's shaming of Hero at the wedding ceremony, he tries to obliterate her entirely: ‘Hence from her, let her die’. If we do see misery for a father what does it feel like if you have been cheated on? Despair, disgust was how Claudio felt like when Hero is accused of being with other men. ‘She's but the sign and semblance of honour’ this is his rage against deception. The phrase ‘rotten orange’ that Claudio uses to describe Hero conveys that on the outside Hero is innocent but there is corruption on the inside. This is backed up by Don Pedro by taking Claudio’s side against Hero. ‘I stand dishonour'd that have gone about, To link my dear friend to a common stale’.
Leonato’s daughter has just been called a ‘common stale’ by a man whom Leonato has accepted as his own and Leonato has been humiliated by that same man. ‘Death is the fairest cover for her shame’. This is part of the social norms, it is Leonato's way of avoiding humiliation. Leonato chooses Hero's death in order to protect his reputation and avoid embarrassment. From the start of Act 4 Scene 1 where he is humiliated dramatic irony is used, the audience knows more than Leonato does. Thus we are able to see his anxiety, when Friar Francis asks Claudio ‘You come hither, my lord, to marry this Lady?’ Claudio's response is a simple ‘No’. Leonato becomes unsettled he says hastily ‘To be married to her, friar: you come to marry her.’ This is an example of Leonato's anxious behaviour. Leonato disowns her verbally by comments such as, ‘Do not live, Hero, do not ope thine eyes …’, ‘No part of it is mine; …’ He uses words such as ‘smirched’ and ‘mired’ to describe how Hero has become dirty. Furthermore, he speaks of her loss of honour as an impossible stain from which he cannot distance himself, no matter how hard he tries: ‘O she is fallen / Into a pit of ink, that the wide sea / Hath drops too few to wash her clean again’. For women in that era, the loss of honour was a form of destruction. Leonato continuously uses the word ‘mine’. It is all completely personal now and Leonato no longer cares for Hero, instead he cares solely for himself.
We are able to see the social class of Claudio as he uses poetry and educational skills of which he would have learnt at school, showing to the audience that he is a man of high social class.
‘Out on thee seeming, I will write against it!
You seem to me as Dian in her orb,
As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown:
But you are more intemperate in your blood,
Than Venus, or those pampered animals,
That rage in savage sensuality.’
Claudio uses the rhythm to express his rage and it is propelled by his anger. Here Claudio introduces blood to give the impression of sexuality and guilt. He expresses his anger using the names of Greek goddesses, Dian whom was the Greek goddess of the moon and chastity, and Venus the goddess of love. Claudio publicly shames her instead of cancelling the wedding just like any other gentlemen would have done. Instead I believe, he opts for equality due to the reason he was shamed in front of his ‘fatherly’ figure, Don Pedro so should Hero.
In this Messinian society Beatrice is very abnormal as she speaks her mind instead of keeping silent and quiet like Hero, as women in those days were portrayed as being, ‘powerless’. Therefore the audience see that women can break the social conventions such as Beatrice by speaking her mind. Leonato relates to Benedik and Beatrice that there is a ‘merry war’ between them, ‘They never meet but there's a skirmish of wit between them’. Beatrice is very witty. . Leonato tells her ‘By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue’. Beatrice is feisty, cynical, witty, and sharp, the Elizabethan audience would be very surprised by her attitude and thus may see her as a ‘loud mouth’.
This public shaming of Hero sees Beatrice angry and she realises that Leonato Beatrice’s summary estimate of the male world of Messina: ‘But manhood is melted into courtesies, valor into compliments, and men are turned into tongues and trim ones too. He is now as valiant as Hercules that only tells a lie, and swears it’. In her frustration and rage about Hero's mistreatment, Beatrice rebels against the unequal status of women in Messinian society. ‘O that I were a man for his sake! Or that I had any friend would be a man for my sake!’ she passionately exclaims, ‘I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving’. The audience are able to see that Beatrice understands hoe she lives in a male-dominated society, and how defenceless women are compared to men.
In Elizabethan society and in Shakespeare’s time, men in society were required to stick together and mingle with them however, in this play Benedik stays behind to comfort Beatrice instead of heading off with Don John, Don Pedro and Claudio. The strength of male solidarity has been broken as he has stayed behind. As I have wrote earlier Benedik is left to decide if prefers the brotherly love of men or the loyalty of a man to a woman, when he helplessly asks Beatrice, ‘Come, bid me do anything for thee’ in a way of declaring his love for her. She replies ‘Kill Claudio’ leaving him with a situation on his hands.
War status was very important in Elizabethan society. In this play Don Pedro has been successful in defeating his enemy at the start of the play. When Leonato asks the Messenger, ‘How many gentlemen have you lost in this action?’ ‘But few of any sort, and none of name’. The Messenger’s response has outlined that no-one of high social class has been killed in battle but few have. Therefore from the start of the play to the finish social importance plays its part. Act 2 Scene 1 is scene where Shakespeare uses masked device to create confusion and laughter for the audience. I believe that in Shakespeare’s time were masked dances happened quite often the masks showed how wealthy they were and the masks often symbolized their personality. Also I believe Shakespeare used a masked dance in this play due to the reason that, the masks would also help to keep the audiences attention because the audience would be intrigued to know who was behind each mask. The identity between Antonio and Ursula is a hidden identity but it fails. ‘I know you by the waggling of your head.' This simply means that Ursula can tell that he is Antonio by the way that he holds himself. This is also humour as Antonio keeps denying it his him but Ursula knows that it is him. ‘I know you well enough, you are Signor Antonio.' ‘At a word, I am not' ' I know you by the waggling of your head' The audience are also well aware of what each of them is thinking which makes it funny. This is a bit of fun and creates a happy mood at the start of the scene.
In this scene we see how defenceless Hero is when she has no choice but to do what her father told her to do, ‘…you know your answer.’ Another form of social pressure was the gulling of Benedik , when having overheard Leonato say Beatrice loves him, is afraid of being censured: ‘I hear how I am censured’. Their constant fight against the pressures of society fails in the end, and we are left thinking that marriage is itself a conspiracy at the end of the play. And their love for each other was ‘arranged’. Beatrice and Benedick announce more love somewhat awkwardly as they become very embarrassed in front of everyone. This becomes very comical to the audience as well as the characters. Benedick asks, ‘Do not you love me?’ for Beatrice to only reply, ‘Why no, no more than reason’, leaving the pair of them in a sticky situation, but with a bit of persuading, they finally come clean with the admitting for their attraction to one another.’ Peace I will stop your mouth’. We are able to see that society can be helpful in matching the pair together. The society of Messina has worked together to bring Beatrice and Benedik together.
The masking of Hero and the other women reveals that the social institution of marriage has little to do with love, when Claudio has to pay the price of ‘killing’ Hero with his words. When Claudio asks, ‘Which is the lady I must seize upon?’ he is ready and willing to commit the rest of his life to one of a group of unknowns. His willingness comes not only from his guilt about bullying an innocent woman on her wedding day but also from the fact that he may care more about rising in Leonato's favour than in marrying for love. Therefore he is agreeing to meet Leonato’s demand and has performed a social ritual to clear his name.
Society in Messina can also be quite corrupt as we see the evil plot of Don John. ‘Therefore know, I have earned of Don John a thousand ducats.’ Society at its lowest as Don John corrupts the social system to get his own way. As in those days infidelity is a big crime and he has paid out to Borachio to cause havoc in Messina and prove to Claudio that Hero has been ‘disloyal’. The audience are able to see how low society can get in disrupting the lives of others. The song that Balthasar sings also reflects this sentences in his song such as, ‘Men were deceivers ever:’, ‘The fraud of men was ever so’. The song that Balthasar sings is a song about infidelity. However, the men listening all fail to note this song. Indeed, the song actually foreshadows what will be mis-noted in the near future when Hero is accused of infidelity.
Shakespeare's plays contain many references to dance, often in the form of puns. In Much Ado, Beatrice, comparing repentance after marriage to the cinquepace (another name for the strenuous galliard, whose basic five-step pattern consists of four leapt kicks, called "greves," and a jump ) talks of "sink(ing) into the grave" (or, cinqueing into the greve). Dancing also occurs as part of the action of many plays, although Shakespeare does not indicate which particular dances he had in mind. The challenge to the choreographer and director wishing to use authentic period dances is to find appropriate dances which fit the given dialogue and action, or which can be adapted to do so with minimum alteration to the original choreography.
