Using the Plays “Much Ado About Nothing” and “the Rover”, Discuss and Compare Each Play’s Treatment of Women.

While many will agree that Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is critically acclaimed to be one of the most entertaining and well-liked pieces that he has written, there tends to be a discrepancy over how the characters in the play are portrayed when it comes to the importance of gender roles. After reading James C Bulman’s article over the Globe’s more recent performance of Twelfth Night and Shakespeare’s original written version, I realized that there are many ways that this famous piece has been portrayed and each has its own pros and cons.

Feminist critical lens examines certain texts with a primary focus on both gender’s relationship with each other and how such relationships demonstrate effects towards beliefs, behaviors, and values. This critical lens also examines a patriarchal-centered society and how such society define and interact with women with an emphasis on stereotypes of both genders that are present and evident in the text being analyzed. William Shakespeare’s Othello can be scrutinized through the feminist critical lens. A deep analysis focused on feminism of the play Othello paves way for the judgement of different societal status of women in the period when the play took place, the Elizabethan society. Othello is a best fit that demonstrates how men were

The Shakespearean play, Much Ado About Nothing, has a unique and an interesting way of presenting the idea of gender, especially for female characters. The play demonstrates two contradictory characters, Hero and Beatrice; one being the “ideal” women during this era and the other being the complete opposite from the “ideal” women. The play challenges as well as reinforces the gender roles during this era with the comparison between the two female characters as well as the attitude of men towards women.

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.

A key concept in Shakespeare’s ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ is the way he uses the gender expectations of the time to create comedy and satirise the characters and in the play, characters are subject to the limitations and expectations because of their gender. Shakespeare acts out against the unfairness of gender roles in society and the inequality between men and women. These gender roles are mainly shown through characters such as Beatrice and Hero and the way they follow and go against the traditional views on women in the Elizabethan era. The use of unconventional characters is used as a comedic feature in ‘Much Ado about Nothing’ to put it into the comedy genre.

In William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, a family is residing in Italy where two tales of love unfold, in a plot filled with deceit and lies. It is seen that there is the constant, but underlined, presence of the struggles of the role that women partake in society through the actions of Beatrice and Hero. Through the character foils of Beatrice and Hero, Much Ado About Nothing suggests that men are stronger and dominant over women, if they like it or not, and therefore, men’s words are held more respectable and truthful than those of women. An active pattern in Beatrice is that she subconsciously admits that men are portrayed as stronger and more dominant, though she still scorns them.

However, it is through the events that happen to the heroine in opening of the bloody chamber that the reader gets the impression a similar situation has happened with his ex-wives- it becomes clear to the reader that once the heroine reaches sexual maturity that the Marquis feels as though he has to empower the female through the act of fearing him and causing pain in which he finds most pleasurable- this is evident when he describes ‘’the act of love as the act of torture’’- to the reader this seems fearful and we can imagine the act to be painful due to the connotations that can be taken from ‘’torture’. However- Carter employs a different approach from the young girl’s naïve nature, emphasising the dark nature of the gothic. It appears that she seems to gain a source of pleasure from being his seemingly ‘prey’: ‘’tender, delicious, ecstasy of excitement’’.

Because women were not allowed to be on stage, men often played female roles. Additionally, women had many expectations placed on them and were very politically and socially disadvantaged. Many of the acts of sexism that oppressed Elizabethan women still happen in today’s society. In fact, Elizabethan women’s roles’ importance in

Throughout Much Ado About Nothing, the audience's presumptions of the men are frequently compromised by their effeminate guise. Whilst it would be correct for the reader to assume that the women are portrayed as the weaker sex, they would be mistaken to believe that the men are as superior as one might expect in a play written in the late Sixteenth Century. Much Ado About Nothing is considered by some as a highly controversial play in relation to the representation of male-dominance; but does the comedy really mock men's hierarchy in society or does Shakespeare merely convey a true depiction of male authority? In the late Sixteenth Century, society was very much male-dominated; women were expected to be passive and compliant to their gender

The works of William Shakespeare have long been used as a sources for areas of gender studies. Gender and sexuality are two notable themes in Shakespeare’s plays that are generally either used as tools of manipulation, forms of propaganda, and sometimes a mixture of both, depending on the genre of the play. These plays tend to reflect the social situation of the women who live through the Elizabethan Age. During the Renaissance, social construct of gender and sexuality norms are a part of society just as they are today. The assignment of gender roles in society reflects a gender hierarchy. While his works explore and often support the social constructs of femininity, “he is also a writer who questions, challenges, and modifies those representations” (Gerlach, et al).

Throughout his works, William Shakespeare has challenged the representations of gender roles in society, by allowing his female characters to exhibit male qualities, as well as allowing the males to exhibit female ones. Despite being written during the late 16th and early 17th centuries, his works are highly relatable to modern times. Today, they are used in classrooms all over the world to help shed light on gender inequalities, and to spark the discussion on how those issues can be resolved. In Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare assumes the role of puppet master to toy with these issues, highlighting key elements of the expectations in defining gender roles in society.

Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing is a romantic comedy narrating the story of Beatrice and Benidick, two people who are against romantic love, and the story of the soldier Claudio and Hero, the sole heiress to Leonato’s wealth. In addition to the play’s humour arising from the misnoting of events, Hero’s character also embodies the desirable characteristics of an ideal woman during Shakespeare’s time, including beauty and wealth, as well as silence and obedience. The ideal woman during Shakespeare’s time was physically beautiful and economically wealthy. After Claudio first meets Hero, he enters into a dialogue with Benedick.

In Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare tethers many boundaries, especially those of the female parts of his plays. The truth about the matter is the boy apprentices, whom have yet to hit puberty and whom Shakespeare considered talented, performed female roles. Which was common during the time because it wasn't until later when women actors came to light. Therefore, in many of his plays, Shakespeare “emphasized the homoerotic implication of these conventions” (McDonald 113). Particularly, in this play, by the conventions portrayed by Beatrice and her muted counterpart, Hero. Ergo, in act 2, Scene 1 become a critical observation between the two women.

In this essay I will be comparing Shakespeare’s original comedy text of ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ to the 2005 modern film adaption. The original text by William Shakespeare was created in 1598-1599, whereas the modern film adaption was created in 2005. The way people lived in the times when the two sources were created were very different. The original text, created in Elizabethan England was a time where woman had few rights and little freedom. The women were often “owned” by their fathers or husbands and subservient and inferior to them. There was an elite aristocracy where most of the population were working class/poor. In that time period people had a limited knowledge of the world and what they knew was heavily influenced by church and monarchy. The characters in Shakespeare’s version are like those of the people in the time it was created so it related to the lives of the audience of the play. The 2005 film adaption

Introduction: The character of Beatrice in the play Much Ado About Nothing is one of the strongest female characters of Shakespeare. In the play, Beatrice is the niece of Leanato, the Governor of Messina and very close to Leanato’s daughter, Hero. The women in the Elizabethan period had a very low status in the society. However Beatrice is very clever and displays intellectual faculty as well as natural ability for humor in her words. She is both talkative and witty. The contrast between the witty and sharp Beatrice and the polite and quiet Hero is highly noticeable throughout the play’ as it makes the character of Beatrice appear more prominent. Beatrice is a prototype of today’s independent woman, with a jest of renaissance splendor. The character of Beatrice is able to touch a responsible chord in the minds of many readers and playgoers even today in the light of the present social issues that encourage equality and self assertiveness for women.