As we finish with our unit on Much Ado About Nothing, consider what stereotypes (racial, class, gender, etc.) are present in the play and how they effect your interpretation of the events portrayed. Do you think Shakespeare believed in the stereotypes he presented or do you feel he was attempting to teach his audience a lesson about misjudging others or about forcing people to conform to tradition? Your intial POST is due on 1-17-08 and your comments on other's blogs are due on 1-23-08.
Through out the play Much Ado About Nothing Shakespeare uses class and gender steriotypes to enhance the plot. As for racial Steiotypes, I found little within the story. The general racial steriotypes are ones of minorities who face racial descrimination, however we find that the only man that is not caucasian is actually the Prince, a man of high social standing and of great honor. However, this maybe racial stereotyping in itself, by having a large quantity of the high class people in Mesina be caucasian we assume that they are viewed as higher than the blacks and other minorities. This also leads the reader's mind to wander and assume the minorities have it hard living as common people in th city, if not worse.
Class steriotypes are shown throughout this play aswell. Leonato, the governor of Mesina, his family, aswell as the prince and his companions, are all very presentable for most of the play and many speak in verse at times (In the movie they are very clean and have nice clothes). However, when we are introduced to Dogberry, Verges, and the watchmen the speak in prose, and have many gramatical errors aswell (In the movie they are dirty and grungy and dress in tatered clothes aswell). This class steriotyping is ends up having a huge effect on the plot. Dogberry goes to Leonato on the day of the wedding to tell him Borachio framed Hero for having sex with him, but because Leonato looks down on Dogberry he disregards him and in doing so Claudio still thinks Hero was cheating on him and that causes the massive scene at the wedding, and Leonato believes him. If only Leonato had valued what Dogberry ahd to say, he could have avoided the drama which took place in the last couple acts.
Finally, this play has some gender steriotyping aswell. It is obvious that the men are running things fromt the start of the play. Leonato is the gorvernor of Mesina and the Prince and his fellow compainons who went to war are all men. However, I assume this is more or less fact that thats how is was back then, but this sets up the role for the women in the play, that they are the housewife type of women who make food, garden, love, take care of the kids, etc. We also see that the women in the play have little to no power, and that a man doesn't need to fully resect her. When Clauio accuses Hero of having sex with another man in fron tof everyone at the wedding he pushes her around and throws her to the ground. Immediately Leonato starts hitting her and telling her to go die. However, even after the truth comes out that Hero was innocent and that Don John is to blame for all of the chaos, no one oppologizes to Hero for treating her so terribly, and she isn't mad at all. This goes to show that she is even used to being treated with such little respect. It is through the use of class, gender, and a little racial steriotypes in Much Ado About Nothing that Shakespeare ads aditional conflict and in doing so enhances the plot.
2 comments:
Nora I really liked when you were talking about class discrimination- and you gave examples of how in the play the ones of lower class had grammatical mistakes, and the characters of higher class often spoke properly in verse. That's a good thing to note. I think it's very important to notice how Leonato completely disregards Dogberry when really he has some valuable information. I agree that these stereotypes enhance the plot. Good job!
I enjoyed your post, but found one flaw. In the first paragraph, when you discuss racial stereotypes, you brought up the example of the prince being black. This is true for the movie we watched in class, but I don't think true for the play altogether. The casting choice for the film happened to be Denzel Washington, a black man. Interestingly, the fact that you unconsciously responded in that way shows how recial discrimination is ever present in our society. Sorry, I went to FAIR, we say things like this.
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