Much Ado About Nothing William Shakespeare

Style

The play is predominantly written in prose.[15] The substantial verse sections achieve a sense of decorum.[16]

Setting

Much Ado About Nothing is set in Messina, a port city on the island of Sicily, when Sicily is ruled by Aragon.[17] Its action takes place mainly at the home and grounds of Leonato's Estate.

Themes and motifs

Gender roles

Benedick and Beatrice quickly became the main interest of the play. They are considered the leading roles even though their relationship is given equal or lesser weight in the script than Claudio's and Hero's situation.[18] Charles I wrote, 'Benedick and Beatrice' beside the title of the play in his copy of the Second Folio.[19] The provocative treatment of gender is central and should be considered in its Renaissance context.[20] This was reflected and emphasized in certain plays of the period but was also challenged.[21] Amussen[22] notes that the undoing of traditional gender clichés seems to have inflamed anxieties about the erosion of social order. It seems that comic drama could be a means of calming such anxieties. Ironically, the play's popularity suggests that this only increased interest in such behavior. Benedick wittily gives voice to male anxieties about women's "sharp tongues and proneness to sexual lightness".[21] In the play's patriarchal society, the men's loyalties are governed by conventional codes of honour, camaraderie, and a sense of superiority over women.[21] Assumptions that women are by nature prone to inconstancy are shown in the repeated jokes about cuckoldry, and partly explain Claudio's readiness to believe the slander against Hero. This stereotype is turned on its head in Balthasar's song "Sigh No More", which presents men as the deceitful and inconstant sex that women must abide.

Infidelity

Several characters seem obsessed with the idea that a man cannot know whether his wife is faithful and that women can take full advantage of this. Don John plays upon Claudio's pride and fear of cuckoldry, leading to the disastrous first wedding. Many of the men readily believe that Hero is impure; even her father condemns her with very little evidence. This motif runs through the play, often referring to horns (a symbol of cuckoldry).

In contrast, Balthasar's song "Sigh No More" tells women to accept men's infidelity and continue to live joyfully. Some interpretations say that Balthasar sings poorly, undercutting the message. This is supported by Benedick's cynical comments about the song, comparing it to a howling dog. In Kenneth Branagh's 1993 film, Balthasar sings it beautifully: it is given a prominent role in the opening and finale, and the women seem to embrace its message.[23]

Deception

The play has many examples of deception and self-deception. The games and tricks played on people often have the best intentions: to make people fall in love, to help someone get what they want, or to lead someone to realize their mistake. But not all are well-meant: Don John convinces Claudio that Don Pedro wants Hero for himself, and Borachio meets 'Hero' (actually Margaret) in Hero's bedroom window. These modes of deceit play into a complementary theme of emotional manipulation, the ease with which the characters' sentiments are redirected and their propensities exploited as a means to an end. The characters' feelings for each other are played as vehicles to reach the goal of engagement rather than as an end in themselves.

Masks and mistaken identity

Characters are constantly pretending to be others or mistaken for others. Margaret is mistaken for Hero, leading to Hero's disgrace. During a masked ball (in which everyone must wear a mask), Beatrice rants about Benedick to a masked man who is actually Benedick, but she acts unaware of this. During the same celebration, Don Pedro pretends to be Claudio and courts Hero for him. After Hero is proclaimed dead, Leonato orders Claudio to marry his 'niece', who is actually Hero.

Nothing

Another motif is the play on the words nothing and noting. These were near-homophones in Shakespeare's day.[24] Taken literally, the title implies that a great fuss ('much ado') is made of something insignificant ('nothing'), such as the unfounded claims of Hero's infidelity and that Benedick and Beatrice are in love with each other. Nothing is also a double entendre: 'an O-thing' (or 'n othing' or 'no thing') was Elizabethan slang for "vagina", derived from women having 'nothing' between their legs.[6][25][26] The title can also be understood as Much Ado About Noting: much of the action centres on interest in others and critique of others, written messages, spying, and eavesdropping. This attention is mentioned several times directly, particularly concerning 'seeming', 'fashion', and outward impressions.

Examples of noting as noticing occur in the following instances: (1.1.131–132)

Claudio: Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signor Leonato? Benedick: I noted her not, but I looked on her.

and (4.1.154–157).

Friar: Hear me a little,

For I have only been silent so long And given way unto this course of fortune

By noting of the lady.

At (3.3.102–104), Borachio indicates that a man's clothing doesn't reveal his character:

Borachio: Thou knowest that the fashion of a doublet, or a hat, or a cloak is nothing to a man.

A triple play on words in which noting signifies noticing, musical notes, and nothing, occurs at (2.3.47–52):

Don Pedro: Nay pray thee, come;

Or if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes. Balthasar: Note this before my notes: There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. Don Pedro: Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks –

Note notes, forsooth, and nothing!

Don Pedro's last line can be understood to mean 'Pay attention to your music and nothing else!' The complex layers of meaning include a pun on 'crotchets', which can mean both 'quarter notes' (in music) and whimsical notions.

The following are puns on notes as messages: (2.1.174–176),

Claudio: I pray you leave me. Benedick: Ho, now you strike like the blind man – 'twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post.

in which Benedick plays on the word post as a pole and as mail delivery in a joke reminiscent of Shakespeare's earlier advice 'Don't shoot the messenger'; and (2.3.138–142)

Claudio: Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of. Leonato: O, when she had writ it and was reading it over, she found Benedick and Beatrice between the sheet?

in which Leonato makes a sexual innuendo, concerning sheet as a sheet of paper (on which Beatrice's love note to Benedick is to have been written), and a bedsheet.