Gender Stereotypes In Much Ado About Nothing By William Shakespeare

In Shakespeare’s play Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare examines the fragility of the male ego and its domination over women in an effort to critique the patriarchy during the Elizabethan Era. In the play, chaos is created and authority in exercised by the male characters with no regard for reason or evidence. This highlights their baseless need to protect themselves at all costs, no matter the effect it may have on the opposite sex.

The female role during Shakespeare’s era is that of daughter, wife, or mother. There was no greater ambition to which women could aspire, especially for the women of the upper class. The only gain a woman could make was to find a good match for a husband. In Much Ado About Nothing Shakespeare portrays the perceived faults, flaws, and fidelity the women of his time faced through the characters Hero and Beatrice. In Much Ado About Nothing, Hero and Beatrice, while cousins, are opposite sides of the same coin; and are as different as day and night. Hero is the height of respectable femininity as a quiet and dutiful daughter. While Beatrice’s witty, outspoken and opinionated personality is a mark against her beauty. Both of the women represent two very different versions of a female, yet, in the end, both of them are defined by the act of marriage. Stressing that the highest that these women could reach was for a husband.

This essay is an exploration of the play Much Ado About Nothing, and the gender roles involved in the deceit and trickery that transpire and develop throughout the story. As gender is one of the main themes in the plot, identifying the expected gender roles of the characters, and how the contrast between characters highlights these expected roles. In Shakespeare 's time, known as the Elizabethan Era, men and women’s roles and expectations were starkly different. Elizabethan women, no matter what social class, were inferior to men. A female’s role in the family was to get married so they could increase their family 's wealth and power and to produce heirs. Men, on the other hand, had all of the power within a household. Males were expected

“my cousin is a fool, and so are you”. Indeed, both men and women have

Italy, a lot of the plays written were set in Italy. This play has a

Imagine you could wear glasses that showed different things out of eachlens. Most likely each pair of glasses, whatever they may look like, serve the same function, to see clearer. However, if you had different lenses which showed different images, out of your right eye you may see an apple and out of your left, an orange. In Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare, men view women through a different lens than they do others, holding them to different standards and expectations. Within that lense, there are different optical powers which are representative of the double standards men hold for women. Shakespeare’s play Much Ado About Nothing takes place in the small town of Messina, located in Italy. The prince of Aragon, Don Pedro, has

sons are my brethren, and, truly, I hold it a sin to match a kindred"

Shakespeare pushes the gender boundaries in Much Ado About Nothing as men were considered very much superior to women. Expectations of how they should behave was based on gender and class in society. Women were seen and not heard and were referred to constantly throughout the play as objects, untrustworthy,submissive and unfaithful.

All throughout Illyria, there is romance, passion, royalty, and an immense amount of gender stereotypes. William Shakespeare imagines the kingdom of Illyria to have very traditional norms for both women and men in his play Twelfth Night. In Scene 2 of Act 1, Viola, recently rescued from a shipwreck, hears about a duke named Orsino and instantly comes up with a plan to get closer to him. Her plan is to disguise herself as a boy who she will name Cesario and become one of Orsino's’ attendants. Right off the bat, we begin to see gender stereotypes. Why must Viola become a man in order to work for the duke? Elizabethan society “molded women into the form of the dutiful wife and mother” (Elizabethan Women). Viola could not have served duke Orsino as a woman because as a woman she was expected to work at home and be either a “dutiful wife [or a] mother”. Scene two prepares the audience for the idea of gender throughout the rest of the play. Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is very traditional play due to its ideas of gender stereotypes in Elizabethan society.

Human nature is often considered in isolation from the rest of the world as if it would be an exception or a special case. In Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing, the complexities of human nature are explored in depth. This essay will explore in particular how Shakespeare dramatises the concepts of human misunderstandings, deception and dichotomy through effective dramatic techniques.

According to a quote by The Atlantic, America is still a “patriarchal community” (Cohen 1). The majority of humans live in a society influenced by men and have little to no understanding of a matriarchal society because it is not around. For centuries, women have fought for equality and it is a reoccuring theme in literature. This theme can show how people critique and analyze many works of art. Countless people can read a text and depict it differently, from the beginning to end. This depends on what critical lens they view it from, allowing people to comprehend the different ways literature is written. There is many different critical lens to choose from. An example of one of the critical lens is the feminist viewpoint. The feminist theory, analyzes the nature of gender equality. This approach shows how women can compare to men. This can be done politically, socially, or economically. In William Shakespeare's play, Hamlet, he can be seen going against the feminist theory. This lens will affect Hamlet’s two main, female characters Gertrude and Ophelia. While viewing Hamlet through the feminist theory lens, many male characters can be seen as being, aggressively, dominant; creating the women to have many stereotypes.

Gender stereotypes are not a modern notion and as such expectations and limitations have always existed for both men and women. Fortunately women, who have formerly beared great burdens of discrimination, now have very liberated roles in society as a result of slowly shifting attitudes and values. Shakespeare was integral in challenging the subservient role expected of women in the 16th century. Throughout the play, ‘The Merchant of Venice’, women are expressed as powerful characters who behave, speak and live in a way that breaks away from the conformist role of females during the 16th century. Therefore, the submissive stereotype expected of women in Shakespearean time is confronted and defied through

During the two gulling scenes, namely Act 2 Scene 3 and Act 3 Scene 1,

There are several ways in which an author can show favor toward some sort of social change, and Shakespeare seems to advocate a social change in one of his plays, Much Ado About Nothing. While he does seem to agree that the original way of marriage works, Shakespeare seems to favor the idea that the decision of whether on not to wed should belong to the man and woman who want to get married and not to the man and the father of the woman. In order to showcase this idea, Shakespeare uses heavy contrast between the two main couples.

Much Ado About Nothing is one of Shakespeare’s more popular plays, a comedy loved by many, and produced still to this day. However, behind all the wordplay, misconception, and pranks Shakespeare successfully exposes the dark, ugly truth about gender roles and inequality within the Elizabethan society. The inequality of genders is prevalent in Beatrice’s language, how the male characters view women within the play, and the concept of honor.