Pupil Presentation on the character and links with Much Ado About Nothing. Preparation for WJEC A Level Lang/Lit A2 coursework.

1. Top Girls

2. “Patient Griselda, the obedient wife”
 Griselda’s obstacle was having a Impossibly demanding
husband.
 Shows achievement by winning her husbands
loyalty, regaining her children who she thought were dead.
 Becomes Queen of Saluzzo, even though she was a poor
peasant girl.
 Griselda doesn’t question what the men in her life have
subjected her to until other women prompt her to do so.

3.  Griselda is a fictional character based on ancient
Folklore.
 Griselda was a poor peasant girl, Gualtieri, the
Marquis of Saluzzo, (The edge of Italy) agrees to
marry her is she will forever obey him.
 He tests her by sending her first born children, a girl
and a boy, away and tells her they are sentenced to
death.
 Griselda obediently gives up both of them without
protest, but Gualtieri secretly sends them away to
Bologna (Italy) to be raised rather than killed.

4.  He finally tests her by publicly divorced
Griselda, claiming he has been granted papal
dispensation to marry a better woman.
 Later, Gualtieri announces he is remarrying and
recalls Griselda as a servant to for the wedding.
 He introduces her to a twelve-year old girl he claims
is to be his bride. Griselda still shows no anger or
jealously, and pays her respects.
 At this, Gualtieri reveals their grown children to
her, of which the ‘’bride’ is their daughter. Griselda is
restored to her place as wife and mother.

5.  The Marquis is called Walter in Top Girls
 Respected for her patient and obedient personality.
 In the play, Griselda constantly defends her husband.
She explains that she understands why he did it.
“Marlene, you’re always so critical of him…”
“Walter found it hard to believe I loved him. He couldn’t believe I
wanted to obey him. He had to prove it” pg 24
 Griselda saw herself and anything of hers, as property
of The Marquis;
“It/ was Walter’s child to do what he like with” pg 25

6.  Marlene describes Griselda’s life as;
“like a fairy-story”. Pg 22
But Griselda strongly disputes this, defending her
husband.
 The other women were shocked by Walter’s ‘Tests’
Marlene: “Walter’s a monster. Weren’t you angry? What did you
do?” pg 27
 Very forgiving and still didn’t disagree with what
Walter had done, or thought there was anything wrong
with it. When asked if she forgave him she answered:
“Of course, I loved him./He suffered so much all those years.” pg 28

7.  When Lady Nijo begins to attack her story and
Walter’s actions, Griselda begins to rethink her life.
“I do think – I do wonder – it would have been nicer if
Walter hadn’t had to.”
 Griselda and Lady Nijo were both essentially
slaves to the men in their lives, albeit willingly
serving them.

8.  Griselda is in likeness to Hero. They are both
subservient to the men in their lives. Hero to her
father before she gets married and Griselda to
‘Walter’, her husband.
 Hero can be seen as the princess in Much Ado as
everything seemed to surround her and her fairy
tale life just like Griselda.
 Unlike Griselda, Hero doesn't say much which
speaks more than any words could. It shows that she
is not as important as the males in the play and her
independent cousin Beatrice who is alike Marlene in
Top Girls.