Contrasts of Character

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the themes of contrasts, of honor and deceit, spinsterhood or bachelorhood and marriage and honor and betrayal that are found in William Shakespeare's plays "The Taming of the Shrew" and "Much Ado About Nothing." The paper focuses on the main contrast of character type in both texts which is achieved by pairing two contrasting sets of lovers against one another. It discusses the articulate love of the couples of Petruchio and Kate in "The Taming of the Shrew" and Beatrice and Benedict in "Much Ado About Nothing."

From the Paper:

"Shakespeare suggests that all relationships are to some extent dependant upon mendacity. However, the question is how harmless these lies might be. The greater lie is in fact Claudio's perception of Hero as perfect, not the fact that Beatrice has not been dying of love for Benedict. In fact, as the audience is well aware if not the lovers themselves, Beatrice and Benedict are ideally suited for one another. They alone speak the same language of all the characters in the play, a dialogue of witty repartee. When engaged in dialogue with other characters, quite often the other characters are overcome by their wit, like Don Pedro when he attempts to woo Beatrice, and Claudio when Benedict expresses his dim view of love at the beginning of the play. In "The Taming of the Shrew," until she meets Petruchio, Kate is utterly dominant over her father and her sister. Only by finding a man who can match her barb for barb is she re-integrated into the society, just as Benedict is not reintegrated into peacetime society after war, until he finds a match in Beatrice."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Craig, W.J. "Much Ado About Nothing." The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. London: Oxford University Press: 1914. Bartleby.com, 2000. <www.bartleby.com/70/.>[10 Apr 2006].
• Craig, W.J., ed. "The Taming of the Shrew." The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. London: Oxford University Press: 1914; Bartleby.com, 2000. www.bartleby.com/70/. [10 Apr 2006]
• Dawson, Anthony. "Review of Impersonations: The Performance of Gender in Shakespeare's England." Early Modern Literary Studies 3.2 (September, 1997): 6.1-6 <URL: http://purl.oclc.org/emls/03-2/rev_daw2.html>. [10 Apr 2006]
• Gerlach, Jeanne, & Rudolph Almasy, and Rebecca Daniel. "Revisiting Shakespeare and Gender." 5.3 (Fall 1996): 5.1-5. Women in Literacy and Life Assembly Journal. <http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/old-WILLA/fall96/gerlach.html>[10 Apr 2006] [10 Apr 2006]

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