With specific reference to Act 2 Scene 1 examine the representation of women in

With specific reference to Act 2 Scene 1 examine the representation of women in “Much Ado About Nothing”. How might a contemporary and a modern audience respond to them?

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”. Hero can be easily compared with Beatrice being of a similar class and very close relatives. Then you have the characters of Margaret and Ursula, the servants, who are also very comparable and show a portrayal of women in lower classes.

This scene is cementing the idea that the play is a Shakespearean comedy and we can see this because the Party is used to create dramatic irony between Beatrice and Benedick in their amusing banter. A modern audience very easily understands the story of the play, and can react to its dramatics. Therefore the play still has an appealing plot. However the appeal of the characters is going to be interpreted differently by contemporary audiences, even though the play is very modern in its portrayal of Women.

The play was written around 1600, in the Renaissance period, and was written about three quarters of the way through Shakespeare’s impressive career. The view of women at this time was typified by the Queen’s beliefs that women should be virtuous wives. She was a very strong woman for and was regarded, by most of the aristocracy, as an honorary man through her status; this gave women hope of empowerment. It was a confusing state of affairs for women, halfway between growth and regression. In this period most women were becoming more positive and self confident, however “ a woman’s identity…depended on her movement in relation to the ‘houses’ of men”. Typically they were destined to be housewives and as such any other sort of thinking was discarded as immoral. These ideas are far apart from our own modern thinking on the sexes and marriage, they are so far removed from our times it can often be difficult to comprehend these objectionable and downright sexist views.

Beatrice is one of the main characters and unlike most of the other women in the play, a modern audience can relate to her. She is almost like the feminist ‘flappers’ of the 1920s; they aimed to empower women with the same leisure pursuits as men, and yet in the end many ended up marrying and becoming the housewives they so detested. However in Renaissance times it was different, there had never before been such a forward minded and witty woman taking centre stage. The character of Beatrice is fiery and rejects the models of women put upon her by society, particularly the idea of marriage.

“LEONATO: (to Beatrice) well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband
BEATRICE: Not till God make men of some other metal than earth… Adam’s sons are my brethren, and, truly, I hold it a sin to match a kindred”

This is the kind of view that women could not express in Elizabethan times. To a modern audience she seems almost the heroine of the story after saying this, yet to the contemporary audience she is merely not honourable enough to be a wife.

In other plays, like “As You Like It”- in which the character ...

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In other plays, like “As You Like It”- in which the character of Rosalind dresses up as a man, which is very melodramatic- there is not nearly the same amount of dramatic irony imbedded into Beatrice’s own character; the comedy is more complex. However, the irony is in fact how she ends up becoming the virtuous women and the good housewife, whereas it is almost the honourable Hero who doesn’t. This is an example of Shakespeare’s portrayal of women, very modern, yet in conclusion very contemporary; it is almost as if the ‘immoral’ ways were changed by love into what they should be. In modern times the belief in marriage has become much less respected; people and their sexuality have became freer.

Claudio describes Hero as a jewel, and in appearance she is fair, young, short, and dark-haired. Benedick describes her as fair in all aspects, and in Elizabethan times this would not have been a bad thing. Fairness, especially of skin, was something women were striving for. Therefore, the fact, that Beatrice describes herself as sunburnt is a way to emphasise their differences.

Hero is just, in a modern sense, a spoilt daughter of a rich father; with the pressure put on her to be a virtuous model woman. People do anything for her because she is an ideal girl; and this is what attracts Claudio. She is the perfect wife for the perfect gentleman. She is obedient to her father and therefore to men. She is a virtuous maiden, proven beyond doubt in the climax of the play; and she is quiet in the presence of her ‘betters’. Beatrice is on the other hand more mature than Hero will ever be, and therefore men shun her. This difference is what Benedick ultimately falls in love with. In the major difference between the two women is Hero’s acceptance of her role in her world and as such she lets it control her, whereas Beatrice is questioning her role. There is a good example of this at the end of the play when she says:

“O that I were a man for his sake, or that I had any friend would be a man for my sake! But manhood is melted into curtsies, valour into compliment… I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving”

This important speech is the fruition of Beatrice’s internal struggle; she finally understands the predicament of being a Renaissance woman, which means you cannot do anything unless you are a man.

“The good nature of a woman is to be mild, timorous, tractable, benign, of sure remembrance and shamefast”.

This is a good way of explaining the way women such as Hero had to be in Renaissance times. She is only expressly like this in front of a watching audience, but when in quiet confines with friends she will be more outspoken (for example Act3 Scene1). This is proven even better when later on in the scene she cannot even tell Claudio how much she loves him and Beatrice is needed to express this for her:

“My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart”

Earlier on in the scene Beatrice pretends not to know she is talking to Benedick, and begins to slander him. This is very comical for the contemporary audience, the idea of mistaken identity has often been used in Shakespeare’s plays It was used in “As You Like It”, “Romeo and Juliet”, “Comedy Of Errors”. A contemporary audience would have found these scenes much more dramatic, because they found it easier to suspend their disbelief; whereas being a cynical society we want hyper-realistic entertainment.

The reason the characters are so different, is Shakespeare’s method of emphasising each woman. Hero would not seem as quiet if Beatrice wasn’t so loud, and Beatrice wouldn’t seem so overly confident if Hero didn’t act so shy. They both have different views and ideals, especially concerning love and marriage. In the end they each fall in love with different people, becoming more similar as the play and their relationships progress.

Another major comparison that can be made between the two is a technique that Shakespeare used in many of his later plays. It involves the use of prose instead of verse and how the difference can be used to suggest ideas. Hero, Claudio, Leonato, and Antonio speak always in verse whereas Benedick and Beatrice (who speak far more often) speak in semi-realistic prose. This difference is again emphasising Beatrice’s rejection of social conventions and Hero’s obedience to them.

The two other women in the play are Hero’s attendants Ursula and Margaret. Margaret, unlike , is lower class. Though she is honest, she does have some dealings with the villainous world of Don John. Her lover is the mistrustful and easily bribed Borachio. Margaret loves to break decorum, especially with bawdy jokes and teases. So in contrast the two are smaller versions of Beatrice and Hero. Ursula keeps quiet and keeps within what others believe is acceptable, Margaret is outspoken and forward. Both are also involved in love stories of their own, although small parts of the overall story they follow minor parallels. They find men and begin courting in Act 2 Scene 1, at the same time as all the other love stories in the play. A modern audience can relate to the class struggle of the play, but it is not an important aspect but the play is in fact unrealistic in its depiction of servants; it is a romantic realisation to fit Shakespeare portrayal of women. The servants show other insights into the portrayal of women in Renaissance society, especially Margaret. Margaret tends to use witty sexual references to help ease the tension surrounding the Nuptials. A modern view on this specific subject was put forward by Carol Needy: “They joke about female “lightness” to warn each other against it, not to threaten men…” So in effect they joke about sex because they are extremely presumptuous yet know their role and its effect on male sexuality.

I believe Shakespeare is trying to comment on the underclasses in relation to the upper classes of the story, producing new contrasts to his other characters. Margaret is of course important, but also to the tone of the prose; she is witty like Beatrice, and she is also an outsider so she can say what she wants. Whereas Ursula is largely quiet, specifically around others of higher class, when alone she is louder and fun just like Hero, for example in Act3 Scene1 when they convince Beatrice that Benedick is in love with her.

“Much Ado About Nothing” is predominately a kind of battle of the sexes that is fought on many different levels. We have Benedick and Beatrice’s “merry war” of wit; there’s the romantic battle of honour between Hero and Claudio; Margaret’s provocative language; and the many ironic monologues about the stupidity of marriage and love. The males of the play dominate these battles, and this is just a reflection on Renaissance life; but it is not particularly true in modern times. Women are represented as dominated by family (Hero) or seemingly free due its absence (Margaret/Beatrice). Beatrice explores her freedoms and in the end is unable to kill Claudio because she simply isn’t strong enough to do it; such was the contemporary view that Men were just the stronger sex. Thanks to love all the women in the play realise this in the end and become more like Hero who is the true heroine of the play. She is the ideal Elizabethan wife who gets everything she wants. Thus the modern interpretation is always going to be different to this, it seems as though it is in fact Beatrice that should be the heroine. The story ends with the marriages, all the loose ends are tied up, and this is because there is no more comedy to be had. The comedy (like in several other Shakespeare plays) was in the courtship and marriage. Marriage is the realization of womanhood in purely contemporary terms. The end of the play is a return to Act2 Scene1 as a happy and friendly place of normality, with no work to be done and with no stresses, a revolution against the broken nuptials.

C. Klapisch-Zuber, Women, Family and Ritual in Renaissance Italy, 1985

Sir Thomas Elyot, The Book Named the Governor, 1531

Carol Thomas Neely, Broken Nuptials: Much Ado About Nothing, 1985