Much Ado About Nothing 2

Question 1

Context: Act 3 Scene 3

Answer 1

➜In Elizabethan times, a woman of Hero’s status would have been expected to have been a virgin on her wedding night
➜It was the father’s duty, as the head of household, to ensure everyone behaved properly
➜A public slander, therefore, brings shame to the whole household
➜Shame would’ve ostracized the whole family and greatly ruined Leonato’s reputation

Question 2

Context: Cuckholds

Answer 2

➜They are men depicted with animal horns as a shameful sign that their wives had been unfaithful
➜To be cuckolded was seen as an assault upon notions of masculinity
➜Women were often depicted as manipulative and immoral, deceptive and superficial, hiding their sins beneath a show of virtue

Question 3

“In faith, hath not the world one man but he will wear his cap with suspicion?” - Benedick

Answer 3

Act 1 Scene 1:
➜”wear his cap with suspicion”: Benedick claims that Claudio would have to wear a cap because he suspects his head sprouted the horns of a cuckold

Question 4

What is a double entendre?

Answer 4

a word that has a double meaning, one of which is suggestive or improper

Question 5

Nothing - key symbol

Answer 5

➜”Nothing”, in shakespeare time, was pronounced as “noting”
➜the play’s name is a euphemism as it implies that the play is about trivial things
➜Most of the action in the play is about nothing, the drama is not based on actual events—actual things that have happened—but rather on mistaken perceptions: Hero is never really unfaithful, Hero is never really dead, Benedick and Beatrice do not really love each other (at first), and Don Pedro is not really courting Hero for himself.
➜The characters are, however, noting these nothings

Question 6

What is the significance of the double entendre “nothing” and “noting”?

Answer 6

➜The double-entendre of nothing/noting alludes to the theme of deception in the play.
➜That perceptions, even wrong ones, can change reality. Noting nothing makes it something.

Question 7

What are the themes in the play?

Answer 7

➜Love and Masquerade
➜Courtship, wit and warfare
➜Language, perception and reality
➜Marriage, shame and freedom

Question 8

What are some examples of Love and Masquerade?

Answer 8

➜Hero is won for Claudio by Don Pedro in disguise.
➜Benedick and Beatrice are brought together through an elaborate prank.
➜Claudio can be reconciled with Hero only after her faked death

Question 9

Love and masquerade

Answer 9

➜Love is always involved with tricks, games and disguises; every step in romance takes place by way of masquerade.
➜Lovers in the play are like masked dancers: the pose and the situation matter more than who the other dancer really is. The lover is a piece in the game, a mask in the crowd, and everyone—no matter who they are—falls victim in the same way.
➜The play suggests that love is not love without its masquerade-like sequence of poses and appearances, even if they must be imagined or faked.

Question 10

“I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain.” - Don John

Answer 10

Themes: Love and Masquerade; Language, perception and reality; Courtship, wit and warfare
Meaning:
Don John admits he is not an honest man but he also freely admits that he is a villain. He says it is much better to be honest about being a villain than one who pretends to be honest but secretly connives and conspires against people.

Question 11

“He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man; and he that is more than a youth is not for me; and he that is less than a man, I am not for him.” - Beatrice

Answer 11

Themes: Love and Masquerade; Courtship, wit and warfare

Question 12

“Speak low, if you speak love.” - Don Pedro

Answer 12

Themes: Love and Masquerade; Courtship, wit and warfare; Marriage, shame and freedom

Question 13

“Friendship is constant in all other things // Save in the office and affairs of love: // therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; // Let every eye negotiate for itself // And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch // Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.” - Claudio

Answer 13

Themes: Love and Masquerade; Language, perception and reality; Marriage, shame and freedom

Question 14

“One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace.” - Benedick

Answer 14

Themes: Love and Masquerade; Marriage, shame and freedom

Question 15

“of this matter // Is little Cupid’s crafty arrow made, // That only wounds by hearsay.” - Hero

Answer 15

Themes: Love and Masquerade; Courtship, wit and warfare; Language, perception and reality

Question 16

“Even she: Leonato’s Hero, your Hero, every man’s Hero.” - Don John

Answer 16

Themes: Love and Masquerade; Courtship, wit and warfare; Marriage, shame and freedom

Question 17

“Seest thou not, I say, what a deformed thief this fashion is? how giddily he turns about all the hot bloods between fourteen and five-and-thirty?” - Borachio

Answer 17

Themes: Love and Masquerade; Language, perception and reality

Question 18

“But mine , and mine I lov’d , and mine I prais’d, // And mine that I was proud on, mine so much // That I myself was to myself not mine, // Valuing of her; why, she— O! she is fallen Into a pit of ink…” - Leonato

Answer 18

Themes: Love and Masquerade; Marriage, shame and freedom

Question 19

“I was not born under a rhyming planet.” - Benedick

Answer 19

Themes: Love and Masquerade; Courtship, wit and warfare; Language, perception and reality

Question 20

Don Pedro

Answer 20

➜“I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace” Act 1: 3 – Metaphor – Don John is making it clear that he would rather be a thorn in his brother’s side, than a good brother. Villain. Defies customs.
➜“Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be medicinable to me” Act 2:2 – Anaphora - Don John is making it clear that any obstacle or barrier to Claudio’s happiness would be like medicine to him. He partly blames Claudio for Don
Pedro’s battle victory at the start of the play.
➜“The word is too good to paint out her wickedness” Act 3:2- Metaphor– Don John depicts Hero as worse than wicked. In saying she is disloyal he knows Claudio will not be able to stand the humiliation, both personally and socially