Much Ado About Nothing Analysis

The time period in which “Much Ado About Nothing” was written directly pertains to its plot, thoughts, and mannerisms of the audience that they play was written for. The play was written in 1598 and produces two plots one being an unconventional love plot involving a strong woman named Beatrice who does not conform or choose to conform to the societal expectations put upon her in a traditional way. “Much Ado About Nothing” highlights the negative female stereotypes, magnifies the connotations that men should overpower and control woman,and that women are evil “cuckholds”, whom no one should trust. Beatrice’s character portrays these negative expectations of gender, deceptions of the opposite gender, and gender prejudices using her love story with Sir Benedick and with the addition of her witty nature, and
Both Beatrice and Kate are female leads in each of their respective plays, and are written to be intelligent, witty, strong, and outspoken women (Greenblatt 316). In “Taming of the Shrew” and “Much Ado About Nothing”, Kate and Beatrice are categorized by each of the Shakespearean play’s other characters as a “shrew”, “being shrewish”, and “acting in the manner of a shrew”, noting of both of the female characters implied the negative connotation during the time period for women, as an insult, and basically stating that both Kate and Beatrice are unreasonable and ill-tempered woman (Greenblatt 125). Leonato further stresses this concept about Beatrice to his brother Antonio, in “Much Ado About Nothing” on page 330 in the book: The Norton Shakespeare: Based on the Oxford Edition: Essential Plays and Sonnets, during Scene I of Act II, where Leonato states, “By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue (2.1.16-17)”