Oh, I am highly amused.
Dec. 23rd, 2005 15:10![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ltgmarsFinished my English paper. It's so bad (it has absolutely nothing to do with anything... really, it's just complete BS with goofy logic), but I loved writing it. XD
Much Ado About Nothing: Deceptively Charming
You'd imagine that you can't really expect much from a play whose title can be read as Much Ado About Female Genitalia in Elizabethan slang. Despite that, William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing proves to be much more than it initially lets on, making sharp observations on a society bent on male power and honor. Two themes that are quite prevalent in Much Ado are the anti-societal idea of deception and a grander view of women than what was regular in Shakespeare's day (it was an era where men still played women's roles in the theatre, after all). Within Much Ado's tidy wrappings of trickery and betrayal (how else would those crazy kids ever fall in love?), there's an unmistakable level of respect shown toward women that suggests that Shakespeare gives them more credit for their influence and intelligence than they've previously received (one could argue, for example, that Claudio's defaming of Hero at the altar was a commentary on the cruelty and unfairness expressed toward women in his day). Apparently, Shakespeare believes that women are more powerful than they perceive themselves to be... perhaps they're able to use subtlety and even deception to their own advantage! Could Shakespeare have been suggesting the power of feminine wiles? Was Beatrice's aggressive personality the embodiment of a phenomenon that Shakespeare was both scared and intrigued by?! A different approach to the themes of Shakespeare's day and a closer look at the elements that he deliberately placed in Much Ado About Nothing, as seen through the development of the character of Beatrice, Shakespeare's subtle fixation on commanding femininity, and his evident commentary on the nature of marriage, brings us closer to understanding the spectacle at hand: feminine wiles may, in fact, be the most dangerous facet of a woman's personality.
One of the heroines of Much Ado About Nothing is the enigmatic Beatrice, a pillar of female strength within a worldview that values female passivity, is portrayed as both witty and keen, a "formidable opponent" and an effective foil for Benedick, ever the manly man. Through her feminine charm, Beatrice stands alone as a woman who, despite (or perhaps because of) her womanhood, can hold her own and can influence others (namely Benedick) in the way they think, furthering Shakespeare's thoughts on the seeming oxymoron of the time that was "strong woman". When we're first introduced to Beatrice, we see her as a woman with an agenda – she wants nothing more than to irk the living daylights out of Benedick by engaging in a round of friendly insults, and she further rips on him when they dance together at the ball (of course, Benedick is hiding behind his mask, so Beatrice doesn't know that she's addressing the man she's insulting... Benedick is accordingly left slightly dejected after the encounter). As Benedick and Beatrice are tricked into "falling for each other", however, we find that Beatrice is much more than just a one-dimensional wench of a woman. Beatrice admits that she greatly respects Benedick as a strong man with a quick wit. More profoundly, though, we see that Benedick greatly respects Beatrice as a beautiful woman and as someone who can keep up with him, showing us that Beatrice's womanly awesomeness has had a great influence on Benedick's train of thought. Did Shakespeare purposely want to advocate the power of women? We may never know, but deliberate or not, the message is there, a shadow of what was something of a revolutionary idea during the time – women do, in fact, have a sizable amount of power within their sexuality, and if you're a man with an affinity toward liking women, that power can be quite difficult to counter.
Shakespeare's thoughts on the power of femininity, however, don't end with Much Ado, one of his more outwardly women-promotional works. Even within his other works, we see the influence of women at work, further suggesting that feminine wiles aren't to be taken lightly. In Macbeth, for example, Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth to kill the king, and she manages to use an aspect of her sexuality to convince him to follow through with the deed – she just so happens to mention that she'll think of him as more manly if he eliminates Duncan and gains the throne. We can see that, more than anything else, Lady Macbeth wants to gain queenship from Macbeth's rise to power, so she makes use of her feminine charms to manipulate Macbeth into obtaining that status for her. We also see such feminine charms at work in Shakespeare's other plays as well as in modern stories (again and again, the male lead (e.g. Romeo) will do something stupid (e.g. drink poison) for the sake or honor of the woman he loves, who may or may not be dead (e.g. Juliet)), and this further emphasizes the power that women have – whether or not they're aware of it – over men. Shakespeare's fixation on female power is evidently a recurring idea (despite his plays that comment on relationships based on derogatory actions toward women, such as Taming of the Shrew), and that spurs us to ask, especially since it's a suggestion from a literary mind often conceived as brilliant (Rachel Hamburg said it herself during class – how is a man who's able to mix social commentary and incredibly high wit anything but brilliant?), is the idea of that overpowering female "it" in a male-led world really that farfetched? Perhaps it's logical to proceed in thinking that, even though men have the positions of power in the world, women go a step beyond that, controlling men and driving them to act in ways they normally wouldn't act, simply by using their sexuality.
Within the limitless potential of the power of sexuality, we must remember that sexuality, female or male, would mean nothing without the impending "after effects" of something so influential: marriage. Much Ado About Nothing showcases two couples that are "meant to be together" (and therefore married): Claudio and Hero, and Benedick and Beatrice. The two stories of love are based on completely different types of love, and Hero and Beatrice prove to be completely different types of women. Claudio is charmed right away by respectful and passive Hero, and he aims to use deception through Don Pedro to be with her (Hero, of course, sits idly by and lets everything happen to her). Benedick, on the other hand, falls in love with Beatrice because he hears that Beatrice is in love with him, and he comes to terms with his high esteem for her as a person. Neither of the couples has an easy road to marriage – there's the matter of deception and defaming within the world of Claudio and Hero, and both Benedick and Beatrice are scared of losing their own self worth to the other sex through marriage (Benedick doesn't think of women as important until he realizes (through deception) his admiration for Beatrice, and Beatrice, being the strong, independent woman that she is, asserts that she doesn't want or need a husband that she has to submit to). Throughout many of his works, Shakespeare presents conflicting ideas of marriage and what marriage should be based on. There are those characters who marry truly out of love (Romeo and Juliet's title characters), and then there are those characters who marry for less honorable reasons, such as greed (Taming of the Shrew's Petruccio) or convenience (Much Ado's Benedick and Beatrice). Juliet wooed Romeo with her looks, Kate wooed that jerk Petruccio with her money, and Benedick and Beatrice wooed each other with their common respect for one another. The different ways these characters "fell in love" with each other are highlighted by the different types of women within each play – a pure woman, a rich woman, and a strong woman – and maybe, just maybe, Shakespeare is saying that the endless possibilities of marriage (and reasons for getting married) are just a result of the endless range of those ever-powerful feminine wiles.
Much Ado About Nothing is a play that stands apart as a literary classic because of its charming wit and because of the distinction it holds as a pro-female piece within a pro-male society. Among Much Ado's main themes are deception and powerful women, and Shakespeare subtly and effectively comments on a mix of the two – feminine wiles – through the clever use of his character Beatrice, through the reoccurring theme of influential women, and through his various representations of marriage, understanding and acknowledging the power of femininity far ahead of his time. Shakespeare was a brilliant man, and his wisdom on a wide variety of subjects has earned him recognition as a great playwright, poet, and person. As twentieth-century poet and novelist Robert Graves once said, "The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good - in spite of all the people who say he is very good." Shakespeare truly was a remarkable writer, and even a philosopher of sorts, and despite the fact that grade school and high school students often fail to appreciate the intricacies of his literature, we should always strive to remember that Shakespeare was a great man, one who, at one point in his life, thought it supremely funny to purposely misspell "Benedict" throughout an entire play about, well, nothing.
Personal notes:
1. I couldn't help but use "pillar" in describing Beatrice. "Beatrice, omae wa josei no hashira ni nare." Ahahaha... *gets shot*
2. I really hope you were the one who said the thing about Shakespeare being brilliant, Rae. ><
3. Yes, I do make up words every once in a while. What else is new?
Much Ado About Nothing: Deceptively Charming
You'd imagine that you can't really expect much from a play whose title can be read as Much Ado About Female Genitalia in Elizabethan slang. Despite that, William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing proves to be much more than it initially lets on, making sharp observations on a society bent on male power and honor. Two themes that are quite prevalent in Much Ado are the anti-societal idea of deception and a grander view of women than what was regular in Shakespeare's day (it was an era where men still played women's roles in the theatre, after all). Within Much Ado's tidy wrappings of trickery and betrayal (how else would those crazy kids ever fall in love?), there's an unmistakable level of respect shown toward women that suggests that Shakespeare gives them more credit for their influence and intelligence than they've previously received (one could argue, for example, that Claudio's defaming of Hero at the altar was a commentary on the cruelty and unfairness expressed toward women in his day). Apparently, Shakespeare believes that women are more powerful than they perceive themselves to be... perhaps they're able to use subtlety and even deception to their own advantage! Could Shakespeare have been suggesting the power of feminine wiles? Was Beatrice's aggressive personality the embodiment of a phenomenon that Shakespeare was both scared and intrigued by?! A different approach to the themes of Shakespeare's day and a closer look at the elements that he deliberately placed in Much Ado About Nothing, as seen through the development of the character of Beatrice, Shakespeare's subtle fixation on commanding femininity, and his evident commentary on the nature of marriage, brings us closer to understanding the spectacle at hand: feminine wiles may, in fact, be the most dangerous facet of a woman's personality.
One of the heroines of Much Ado About Nothing is the enigmatic Beatrice, a pillar of female strength within a worldview that values female passivity, is portrayed as both witty and keen, a "formidable opponent" and an effective foil for Benedick, ever the manly man. Through her feminine charm, Beatrice stands alone as a woman who, despite (or perhaps because of) her womanhood, can hold her own and can influence others (namely Benedick) in the way they think, furthering Shakespeare's thoughts on the seeming oxymoron of the time that was "strong woman". When we're first introduced to Beatrice, we see her as a woman with an agenda – she wants nothing more than to irk the living daylights out of Benedick by engaging in a round of friendly insults, and she further rips on him when they dance together at the ball (of course, Benedick is hiding behind his mask, so Beatrice doesn't know that she's addressing the man she's insulting... Benedick is accordingly left slightly dejected after the encounter). As Benedick and Beatrice are tricked into "falling for each other", however, we find that Beatrice is much more than just a one-dimensional wench of a woman. Beatrice admits that she greatly respects Benedick as a strong man with a quick wit. More profoundly, though, we see that Benedick greatly respects Beatrice as a beautiful woman and as someone who can keep up with him, showing us that Beatrice's womanly awesomeness has had a great influence on Benedick's train of thought. Did Shakespeare purposely want to advocate the power of women? We may never know, but deliberate or not, the message is there, a shadow of what was something of a revolutionary idea during the time – women do, in fact, have a sizable amount of power within their sexuality, and if you're a man with an affinity toward liking women, that power can be quite difficult to counter.
Shakespeare's thoughts on the power of femininity, however, don't end with Much Ado, one of his more outwardly women-promotional works. Even within his other works, we see the influence of women at work, further suggesting that feminine wiles aren't to be taken lightly. In Macbeth, for example, Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth to kill the king, and she manages to use an aspect of her sexuality to convince him to follow through with the deed – she just so happens to mention that she'll think of him as more manly if he eliminates Duncan and gains the throne. We can see that, more than anything else, Lady Macbeth wants to gain queenship from Macbeth's rise to power, so she makes use of her feminine charms to manipulate Macbeth into obtaining that status for her. We also see such feminine charms at work in Shakespeare's other plays as well as in modern stories (again and again, the male lead (e.g. Romeo) will do something stupid (e.g. drink poison) for the sake or honor of the woman he loves, who may or may not be dead (e.g. Juliet)), and this further emphasizes the power that women have – whether or not they're aware of it – over men. Shakespeare's fixation on female power is evidently a recurring idea (despite his plays that comment on relationships based on derogatory actions toward women, such as Taming of the Shrew), and that spurs us to ask, especially since it's a suggestion from a literary mind often conceived as brilliant (Rachel Hamburg said it herself during class – how is a man who's able to mix social commentary and incredibly high wit anything but brilliant?), is the idea of that overpowering female "it" in a male-led world really that farfetched? Perhaps it's logical to proceed in thinking that, even though men have the positions of power in the world, women go a step beyond that, controlling men and driving them to act in ways they normally wouldn't act, simply by using their sexuality.
Within the limitless potential of the power of sexuality, we must remember that sexuality, female or male, would mean nothing without the impending "after effects" of something so influential: marriage. Much Ado About Nothing showcases two couples that are "meant to be together" (and therefore married): Claudio and Hero, and Benedick and Beatrice. The two stories of love are based on completely different types of love, and Hero and Beatrice prove to be completely different types of women. Claudio is charmed right away by respectful and passive Hero, and he aims to use deception through Don Pedro to be with her (Hero, of course, sits idly by and lets everything happen to her). Benedick, on the other hand, falls in love with Beatrice because he hears that Beatrice is in love with him, and he comes to terms with his high esteem for her as a person. Neither of the couples has an easy road to marriage – there's the matter of deception and defaming within the world of Claudio and Hero, and both Benedick and Beatrice are scared of losing their own self worth to the other sex through marriage (Benedick doesn't think of women as important until he realizes (through deception) his admiration for Beatrice, and Beatrice, being the strong, independent woman that she is, asserts that she doesn't want or need a husband that she has to submit to). Throughout many of his works, Shakespeare presents conflicting ideas of marriage and what marriage should be based on. There are those characters who marry truly out of love (Romeo and Juliet's title characters), and then there are those characters who marry for less honorable reasons, such as greed (Taming of the Shrew's Petruccio) or convenience (Much Ado's Benedick and Beatrice). Juliet wooed Romeo with her looks, Kate wooed that jerk Petruccio with her money, and Benedick and Beatrice wooed each other with their common respect for one another. The different ways these characters "fell in love" with each other are highlighted by the different types of women within each play – a pure woman, a rich woman, and a strong woman – and maybe, just maybe, Shakespeare is saying that the endless possibilities of marriage (and reasons for getting married) are just a result of the endless range of those ever-powerful feminine wiles.
Much Ado About Nothing is a play that stands apart as a literary classic because of its charming wit and because of the distinction it holds as a pro-female piece within a pro-male society. Among Much Ado's main themes are deception and powerful women, and Shakespeare subtly and effectively comments on a mix of the two – feminine wiles – through the clever use of his character Beatrice, through the reoccurring theme of influential women, and through his various representations of marriage, understanding and acknowledging the power of femininity far ahead of his time. Shakespeare was a brilliant man, and his wisdom on a wide variety of subjects has earned him recognition as a great playwright, poet, and person. As twentieth-century poet and novelist Robert Graves once said, "The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good - in spite of all the people who say he is very good." Shakespeare truly was a remarkable writer, and even a philosopher of sorts, and despite the fact that grade school and high school students often fail to appreciate the intricacies of his literature, we should always strive to remember that Shakespeare was a great man, one who, at one point in his life, thought it supremely funny to purposely misspell "Benedict" throughout an entire play about, well, nothing.
Personal notes:
1. I couldn't help but use "pillar" in describing Beatrice. "Beatrice, omae wa josei no hashira ni nare." Ahahaha... *gets shot*
2. I really hope you were the one who said the thing about Shakespeare being brilliant, Rae. ><
3. Yes, I do make up words every once in a while. What else is new?
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Date: 2005-12-24 01:42 (UTC)Also? I love your complex sentences; parentheses within parentheses are awesome. And your use of awesomeness is awesome. And, yeah. :D