Play Analysis Of 'Much Ado About Nothing'

The play “Much Ado About Nothing” by William Shakespeare is a comedy that tells the tale of two pairs of lovers: Hero and Claudio, and Beatrice and Benedict. Though the main plot of the story revolves around Hero and Claudio, Benedict and Beatrice’s romantic relationship is an important subplot to the story. In “Much Ado About Nothing”, Shakespeare uses irony, hyperbole, and use of language to illustrate Benedict and Beatrice as a nontraditional spin on the ideal couple through the strength and security of their love, as can be shown in dialogue not traditionally associated with love.

"Much Ado about Nothing" is a traditional Shakespearean play. Many of Shakespeare stories are about young people who are in love with each other. . Claudio, one the main figure in "Much Ado about Nothing" is a young romantic hero in the play. He like many other heroes in Shakespearean comedies, has some problems in his character. He appears to be extremely immature and insecure although he is a brave young man just coming back from a war.

Hero express that you must manipulate someone's love life no matter the consequences when she explains, “some cupids kill with arrows, some with traps” (3.2.112). You must use trickery, to reveal their true feelings for the other person. In Much Ado About Nothing trickery and deception are central themes in the play. At least, every character in this play have been a victim of trickery or deception. This comes to show that manipulation can reveal the true feelings and thoughts about one another.

In William Shakespeare’s play, Much Ado About Nothing, he spins a tale of misunderstandings leading to terrible consequences, but truth prevails in the end. He sets the scene in the mansion of the Messinan Governor Leonato. Don Pedro has just won a huge battle and has decided to pass through Messina. As he arrives, accompanied by Claudio and Benedick, Claudio quickly falls in love with Leonato’s daughter Hero, and Beatrice engages Benedick in a battle of wit and insults. As the play unfolds, the audience learns that Don Pedro’s brother, Don John the Bastard, will try to destroy Don Pedro’s plans no matter the cost or consequence. Claudio asks Don Pedro to win him Hero’s favor, At the Masquerade Ball and convince Leonato to approve a marriage

“Much Ado About Nothing” by Shakespeare takes the reader back to the Elizabethan time period. The play’s comedic tone presents the conflict that is taking place in the city Messina. The performance gives perspective on the characters’ relationships throughout a brief time span. Beatrice and Benedick are major characters whose relationship evolved throughout the play. Through the development of character relationships, the reader can sense the gender roles included in the production.

As a Christian community, with a Christian worldview, it is vital to invest Biblical values and beliefs into the minds of the new generations. As King’s Christian College, it is also ideal to give a clear representation of these morals to students. Much Ado about Nothing provides a humourous portrayal of humanity, in which life is purely superficial. Whilst deception and manipulation may appear charming on the surface, the veracity and intensity of it lies beneath the hollow values of idealistic Christian community, and it must be uncovered to “educate” the students in “Christian leadership” for the future generations. The play signifies themes and representations that have resonated throughout history and are still prominent in today’s society.

It is an intrinsic battle that takes place over the course of the play, but comes to a head during the concluding moments, in which Claudio is deceived by his apprehensions of marriage into rejecting Hero, showing that perhaps he prides his honor above the love he so freely professes. Hero is placed in the uncomfortable position of being rejected by nearly everybody she cares for, necessitating that she fake her demise and be reborn as a new woman, resurrected from the grave and cleansed of the impurities she was accused of. Benedick and Beatrice have both pledged never to find love, and therefore must remove the guises behind which they labor- for indeed, both characters desire love, but hide their wish for fear of being rejected. In each instance, past beliefs must be discarded in the name of securing future happiness, which causes consternation in each individual. In the case of Benedick, he is forced to challenge his best friend to a duel in order to win the hand of his lover- an appendage of the central conflict, which is the inner battle between love and personal reservations which takes precedence over life and death (at least for the Christ-figure maiden

In my opinion, I think that the movie version and the play version, of Much Ado About Nothing by Shakespeare, are not very different. They have a lot of similarities for example; Hero and Claudio met and thought they should be together, Claudio thinks he saw Hero cheating on him with another man. So therefore at their wedding he demanded for her to die because of her relations with another man. Claudio realizes he was wrong about what she did and he had to marry her cousin without seeing her at all till they’re married. The wedding day comes and once she uncovers her face its hero, and Beatrice and Benedick are in love with each other.

In my second quote Leonato says to Claudio and Prince “O, when she had writ it and was reading it over, she found “Benedick” and “Beatrice” between the sheet? Claudio, Prince and Leonato think the Beatrice wants to have sexual intercourse with Benedick. That is how the three men trick Benedick into thinking Beatrice loves Benedick and wants something else from of too. In Act III, Hero, Margaret, Ursula, are going to trick Beatrice into thinking Benedick loves her.

John Ruskin once said, “It is better to lose your pride with someone you love than to lose that someone you love with your useless pride.” Similarly, in Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare also suggests that the biggest barrier between romantic love is pride. He asserts, this by telling the readers that love is a far more authentic feeling than pride, and that love can only grow if an individual is able to set aside their pride and allow themselves to be both vulnerable and receptive to authentic feelings. The first thing that is emphasized in the play, Much Ado About Nothing is the vulnerability and dangers of love. It’s shown that falling in love is a constant danger, and that no one gets out of the ordeal unharmed.

Claudio, Hero and Don Pedro all realize how perfect Beatrice and Benedick are together and so they set up a plan to deceive the two of them into falling in love. Don Pedro comes up with the plan to be having Benedick eavesdropping on Don Pedro, Leonato and Claudio chatting about how much Beatrice is secretly in love with Benedick. Just as they expected , their plan goes off without a hitch. After the group is done talking and they all leave, Benedick comes out of hiding and start talking about what he just heard and realizes that he is in love with Beatrice. “I will be horribly in love wit her.”

Gossip is the main driver of the various plotlines in Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing. The conflict in the play is shaped entirely around false rumor spread by characters and the hearsay that accompanies it. The characters’ actions are enormously affected by the conversations they overhear and their willingness to believe secondhand information over direct experience. Patricia Meyer Spacks states in her novel Gossip, that rumor in the play “creates its own territory using materials from the world at large to construct a new oral artifact” (Spacks, 1985, Location No. 315). New components are spontaneously introduced in the plot through gossip and hearsay, and are capable of changing the outcome of the play due to the power of words over characters. Gossip and hearsay are employed in Much Ado to deceive characters into revealing their true selves in order to promote social peace or breed conflict, to validate or vilify love, and to challenge the reputation and authority of characters.

After Claudio was trick in the wedding he rejected Hero and called her a “rotten orange” (4.1.32). Even after the truth was revealed of Prince deceitful plan Claudio ask for forgiveness and Hero stilled love him even after he shamed her in front of everybody and said “And when I lived I was your other wife. And when you love, you were my other husband”. Even after all they been through they were still strong able to forgive each other making their love

Claudio’s relationship with Hero is immature because Claudio only loved Hero for her beauty. When Claudio arrived at Leonato’s home, he quickly fell in love with her without even meeting her. He told Benedick about his feeling towards Hero, hoping that she is as sweet as he imagined her to be. In the text it says, “In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that I ever looked on. I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn the contrary, if Hero would be my wife.”

Claudio fell in love with Hero right when he laid his eyes upon her. Claudio claims, “In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that I ever looked on (I.i.183-184).” This example shows that Claudio fell in love with her looks, not her personality. Another reason for their unrealistic relationship is Hero fakes her death after being accused of cheating. Shakespeare wrote, “Done to death by slanderous tongues, was the Hero that here lies.