Have you ever read “Much Ado About Nothing”, a play by William Shakespeare? This play is set in the early 1500’s in Messina, Italy, and is brought on after a small war between two brothers occurred. The two main characters Beatrice and Hero are cousins which have love stories that are intertwined with each other. Even though they both end up finding true love in the end of the play, their views of love are completely different. In the play “Much Ado About Nothing” by William Shakespeare, Beatrice and Hero are character foils of each other because of the way others view them, their contrasting opinions, and differing personality traits. One reason that Beatrice and Hero are character foils is because of how other characters in the
…show more content…
Beatrice is a very strong character with a sharp tongue. Beatrice will state what she thinks even if it hurts the people around her. For example, when she says “a bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours” (Shakespeare 5). She is talking to Benedick about her ex boyfriend, and is making it very clear that she despises him. She insults him with hateful words, and doesn’t care what anyone thinks. On the contrary, Hero is a passive, shy girl. She rarely opens her mouth, just like a mannequin. An example of when she finally spoke up was when Claudio proposed to her after publicly humiliating her, and she responded with “And when I loved, you were my other husband” (Shakespeare 100). In this section of the book, Hero faked her death after the public humiliation to see if Claudio truly loved her. Even though Claudio came through and decided he did love Hero, it was the wrong decision to say yes to his proposal because he publicly shamed her! This shows that when Hero actually does decide to speak for herself, she might actually make the wrong decision because she is so used to relying on others for help. Therefore, the differing personality traits between Beatrice and Hero make them character foils because they are the exact opposites, but that is what makes their bond in the play so
Beatrice is a very strong character with a sharp tongue. Beatrice will state what she thinks even if it hurts the people around her. For example, when she says “a bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours” (Shakespeare 5). She is talking to Benedick about her ex boyfriend, and is making it very clear that she despises him. She insults him with hateful words, and doesn’t care what anyone thinks. On the contrary, Hero is a passive, shy girl. She rarely opens her mouth, just like a mannequin. An example of when she finally spoke up was when Claudio proposed to her after publicly humiliating her, and she responded with “And when I loved, you were my other husband” (Shakespeare 100). In this section of the book, Hero faked her death after the public humiliation to see if Claudio truly loved her. Even though Claudio came through and decided he did love Hero, it was the wrong decision to say yes to his proposal because he publicly shamed her! This shows that when Hero actually does decide to speak for herself, she might actually make the wrong decision because she is so used to relying on others for help. Therefore, the differing personality traits between Beatrice and Hero make them character foils because they are the exact opposites, but that is what makes their bond in the play so