https://booksthatshookus.com/ asked for submissions of 200 word or less blurb about your favorite Shakespearean heroine. What impresses, scares, or amuses you about Shakespeare’s vibrant female characters?
This was my submission:
Hero in Much Ado About Nothing
Hero is the long-maligned heroine from Shakespeare. Many say that she’s only a catalyst for Beatrice and Benedick’s story. Too pretty, too frail, uninspired in her mannequin-like appearances, and few lines are hers. We’re given very little to build a relationship with her, but that is exactly why I think she is one of the best heroines.
I imagine so much more to her story; her past, her present, and her future. She has courage we see and even more possibilities we don’t. What dreams of hers were left untold? She has resilience when played as a pawn.
Let’s face it, in the end she gets Claudio, and what she wanted all along. They no longer enter married life together in the guise of innocence and perfection. By the time Hero has her Claudio, she has managed to put him in his place, scrubbed clean of expectations she’d never be able to live up to. She has won what she wanted on better terms than when she started.