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Much Ado About Nothing Research Paper

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William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” was a play about romance, misunderstanding and happiness. A modern audience would view this play in a different way to an audience in Shakespeare’s time, particularly in relation to the role and status of women and attitudes towards courtship and marriage. Two of the main ideas in the play include the fact that women’s voices aren’t heard and the role of the father in the relationships of their daughters are two topics that will be covered. As a 21st century viewer of this play seeing the treatment of women, and how their voices and opinions aren’t always taken into account, I believe that this sort of treatment wasn’t the right thing to do. An example of this from the play is when Claudio accuses Hero of ‘Sleeping Around’ and when she objected and tried to state her innocence, her voice and opinion on the topic wasn’t even listened to. Also, another example of when this occurred in the play is when Beatrice had to ask Benedick to challenge Claudio and defend Hero’s honour, right after Claudio had accused Hero of not being a virgin. Beatrice couldn’t challenge Claudio’s decision …show more content…

An example from the play of when the father figure was a significant role in his daughters’ relationship, is when upon arrival after fighting in the war, the locals host a masked party that night. Count Claudio had already set his eyes upon a pretty woman named Hero, but to make sure he could marry Hero, he had to ask for permission from Hero’s dad (Leonato). Also there was another example of this in the play was when Benedick and Beatrice finally fall in love (after a fair bit of being misled), and seeing as Beatrice’s parents weren’t talked about or even shown in the play, Benedick could only ask Leonato for permission to marry her, who is Beatrice’s

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