To what extent is the comedy in Much Ado About Nothing at the expense of the female characters? Shakespeare’s ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ combines “Villainy and scheming with humour and sparkling wordplay” to subtly fashion a satirising gender critique of the conventional female in the Elizabethan patriarchal society. David Lucking precisely argues that the play revolves “around a drama of groundless jealousy” while Ross Stewart describes Much Ado as a “problem play of obscure intent”, much like ‘The Tempest’. I believe ‘Much Ado’ creates humour by using the dominant role of male characters to gently ridicule the expected position of female characters in society; most notably through the portrayal of Hero and Beatrice; the latter having striking similarities to Katherine from ‘The Taming Of The Shrew’ due to her repugnance towards marriage. Humour at the expense of women is also prominent in ‘Much Ado’ through the use of ‘vulgar’ pre-marriage language, favoured by Margret – another arguably unconventional woman of the Elizabethan society, who participates in sex outside of wedlock purely for pleasure, creating controversy and humour.
And if that’s sinful, then let me be damned for it!”(Scene Nine).She seems enraged that her reality is unraveled, that everyone now sees her fantasy for what it is, fantasy. Her lies about her purity, her age, her background, everything is now out in the open to be judged and scrutinized by the public. Blanche DuBois is a tragic figure. She is out of place both geographically and temporally (Scene One). She appears to be trying to remain a ‘young women’ when in fact she is getting old, this results in an unappealing persona.
She lies about her husband’s vulgar behaviour and justifies it through clichés. While Blanche lies primarily to others, Stella lies to herself. Both do so as they need to, to survive. At the beginning of the play-from the moment we meet Blanche, we see the idea of telling lies and keeping secrets appear. Blanche is driven by sexual desire but is condemned by it for being a whore.
Despite this, Henry continues with the charade that he is in love with her. Later on, this is the very thing Catherine wants “keep lying to me” as this time she is actually in love with Henry. At the start of the affair between the two lovers, their love for each other was a lie. However when Henry gets injured and sent to the hospital in Milan and reunites with Catherine, he described her as “I’ve never seen a more beautiful thing in my life” indicating to us that he has well and truly fallen in love with her. There is no reason for this change of heart in Henry other then maybe the leg injury he
This sets up the binary opposition of male and female, which helps mold the main tenant of Jane’s interpretation of the wallpaper: there is a woman being held back by complexities. It fits into the binary opposition insofar as the woman is held back by her desires and complexities because the man forces her to repress them. Beauvoir explains that women are confronted with binary oppositions as far as what a woman is. (1266) She says that, “if woman is depicted as the Praying Mantis, the Mandrake, the Demon, then it is most confusing to
Also in today’s unclear world with the ever increasing amount of divorce and conflict within marriages a screwball comedy would have a hard time getting wide appeal and a success. Today’s culture is so used to explicit sex that innuendo and true romance couldn’t generate enough revenue to work in today’s market. The Lady Eve adheres to the Hollywood style in regards to character type for this genre of film. As I had mentioned earlier in the essay the characters clearly are set in their roles shown not only socially but sexually. Jean the key representative of the lower class shows through her sexual antagonism of Hopsie, that she like the lower class wields the real power when it comes to real world situations.
However, this attitude to love and women changes from positive to negative when he realises Lesbia’s infidelity, seen in Poems 5 and 10. Catullus also holds a negative attitude to other women in the poems who he sees as objects of affection and lust and not as women to love. Secondly, Catullus has an unfavourable attitude to women as he see’s women as deceitful. This attitude is seen in Poems 10 and 11 where he is deceived by Lesbia and a woman he names as a ‘tartlet’ and this leads to Catullus’s final attitude to women where he see’s women as being insatiable, this also links to the first attitude where Catullus uses women as objects to calm his desire for lust and is seen in Poems, 11, 32 and 110. The focus of the commentary is to form an argument around the statement that Catullus’s overall attitude to women is negative and derogatory.
Race, Crime, Justice, and the State 20 October 2009 The Trifling Oppression of Women in Antigone and The Island In both Sophocles Antigone and Fugard’s The Island women are oppressed by men. The oppression of women can be seen in the two societies in which both of these plays occur; the men oppress women by undermining them, declaring that women are beneath men, and refusing to being seen as womanly. For instance in Sophocles’ Antigone, Kreon shows the oppression of woman in their society through the treatment of Antigone. He rejects any idea that Antigone would be correct and her judgment better than Kreon himself, a man. In Athol Fugard’s, The Island, the oppression of women can be seen by Winston’s dissatisfaction as dressing and playing the role of a woman in a performance for their fellow prisoners.
However, Desdemona is also depicted as aggressive and opposing to Shakespeare’s context through Othello’s story. Othello explains that Desdemona has “with a greedy ear, devour[ed] up [his] discourse.” This metaphorical characteristic of Desdemona challenges cultural assumptions about women in Shakespeare’s context. When Desdemona speaks for herself, in a very assertive and intellectual manner she states, “I did love the Moor to live with him”. This statement expands on Desdemona’s sexual nature. Shakespeare has challenged his own context in this scene, providing an opportunity for Orson Wells to also develop a controversial Desdemona – appropriate to his own context.
His attitude makes it seem like he finds women untrustworthy and weak. Throughout the play Hamlet’s treatment towards women were unkind, unfair and disrespectful. Hamlet is unkind towards Ophelia and Gertrude throughout the play. Hamlet: Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty can translate beauty into his likeness; this was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.