Much ado about Nothing

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                                Much Ado About

                                Nothing: - Essay

Much Ado About Nothing is a play that focuses on the relationships between men and women. It is a Shakespearean comedy therefore the themes revolving around the play include struggle, love, deceit, mishaps and lies. In this play there are usually couples who end up enduring all the struggles and trickery and normally end up getting married at the end. The lovers in this play are Beatrice, Benedick, Hero, and Claudio. Shakespearean comedies normally involve a fool or someone silly and in this play there is a fool, Dogberry, even though he is a fool he is the most truthful character but unfortunately does not have the words to explain himself. The male characters in this play are very conscious about their respect and honour and how other people see them, this helps the play reflect Elizabethan values. On one hand you have Hero who is the ideal Elizabethan women; obedient, modest and quiet but on the other hand there is Beatrice, the complete opposite of what you would look for in an Elizabethan women, she is a challenging and up roaring character and is very against the stereotypes towards women at that time.

Claudio is Hero’s fiancé; He is a well known and respected Count because of his performance during battle. “Doing in the figure of a lamb the feats of a lion.” This means that although Claudio is young and naïve his performance was of an old, great, and courageous man. Even though Claudio’s encounter with Hero was brief, “I looked upon her with a soldier’s eye”, he has fallen in ‘love’ with her looks, manners, and virtue. Claudio refers to Hero as a rare ‘jewel’ to indicate that she is beautiful and her features are very hard to find in a woman. “Can the world buy such a jewel?” Claudio is foolishly in love and does not know what he is getting himself into. Although Claudio says this, Hero is relatively unknown to him. Claudio wants to be respected by his peers and if he married Hero his status would increase as Hero is Leonato’s only daughter so she inherits all of Leonato’s fortune.

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Leonato is Hero’s father, he has raised her from birth as a father and mother figure, and Hero is very important to him. It almost seems that Hero is the foundation of Leonato’s respect and honour and if that foundation were to be cracked or tainted then Leonato’s respect and honour will be stained. Even though Leonato has raised her he knows very little about her and does not even trust her later on in the play. Leonato is a very strict father and expects Hero to obey him at all times. “Daughter remember what I told you: if ...

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