Themes

Question 1

LOVE AND MASQUERADE

Answer 1

• Love is always involved with tricks, games and disguises.
• Every step in romance takes place by way of masquerade:
• 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.
• These things suggest that love—like a play or masquerade—is a game based on appearances, poses and the manipulation of situations.
• If you put people together in a certain way, a certain result occurs
• 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.
• Don Pedro manipulates Benedick and Beatrice like a scientist conducting an experiment, or a playwright setting a scene.
• 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 2

COURTSHIP, WIT, AND WARFARE

Answer 2

• Much Ado About Nothing constantly compares the social world—masquerade balls, witty banter,
  romance and courtship—with the military world.
• War of wit and love are compared to real wars in a metaphor that extends through every part of the play.
• The rivalry of Benedick and Beatrice is called a “merry war,” and the language they use with and about each other is almost always military: as
  when Benedick complains that “[Beatrice] speaks poniards, and every word stabs.”
• Romance is made military. The arrows
  of Cupid are frequently mentioned, and the schemes which the characters play on each other to accomplish their romantic goals are similar to military operations.
• Like generals, the characters execute careful strategies and tricks.
• Don John and Don Pedro, enemies in the war before the play begins, face off again on the field of social life:
  -one schemes to ruin a marriage
  -another to create one.
• Benedick and Beatrice are “ambushed,” by their friends into eavesdropping on staged conversations:
  -Borachio stations Margaret as a “decoy,” in Hero’s window.
• The “merry war,” of Much Ado About Nothing
  ends just like the real war that comes before the beginning of the play:
  -everyone has a happy ending.
• At the very beginning, Leonato says that “A victory is twice itself when the achiever
  brings home full numbers”—in this, the end of a good comedy resembles the end of a good war.

Question 3

LANGUAGE, PERCEPTION AND REALITY

Answer 3

• dwells on the way that language and communication affect our perception
  of reality.
• It is important to remember nothing (besides marriage) actually happens in the play—there are no fights, deaths, thefts, journeys, trials, illnesses, sexual encounters, losses or gains of wealth, or anything else material.
• All that changes is the perception that these things have happened, or that they will happen: that Hero is no longer a virgin, or that she has died, or that Claudio and Benedick will fight.
• Tricks of language alone repeatedly change the entire situation of the play.
• Overheard conversations cause Benedick and Beatrice to fall in love, and the sonnets they have written one another stop them from separating once the prank behind their romance has been revealed.
• The idea that we live in a world of language and appearances, beyond which we cannot see, is common throughout Shakespeare.
• The famous quote that “All the world’s a stage,” is another example.
• By the end, the false language in Much Ado About Nothing has almost overwhelmed the reality.
• Characters have fallen into the roles given to them in the lies told about them:
• Benedick and Beatrice have become lovers
• Hero is treated like a whore by her own father.
• Ironically, the only character with the
  knowledge to replace this false language with the truth is the completely inarticulate Dogberry.

Question 4

MARRIAGE, SHAME AND FREEDOM

Answer 4

• romantic experiences are always connected to issues of freedom and shame.
• If dignity comes from having a strong and free will, then love, desire and marriage are a threat to it.
  -This is the position taken by most of the characters. Benedick, for example, compares the married man to a tame, humiliated animal.
• The events of the play confirm this position on love and dignity taken by most of the characters.
• Benedick and Beatrice begin the play seeming witty, aloof and superior to the others.
• But by the end, their love has made them somewhat ridiculous. Like puppets, they are manipulated by their friends.
• Ironically, Much Ado About Nothing suggests that the characters fear of shame in love is more likely to lead to embarrassment than love itself will.
• Terrified that marrying Hero will dishonor him, Claudio shames her publicly. But when the truth comes out, his outburst seems silly.
• The same goes for Beatrice and Benedick: their extreme resistance to love and marriage (and the accompanying shame and loss of freedom) makes them look all the more ridiculous when they finally give in.
• They also lose more of their freedom:
• while Claudio chooses Hero
• Benedick and Beatrice are chosen for each other.
• At the same time, Much Ado suggests that giving in to our strong feelings for other people is unavoidable.
• Despite the shame of going back on their principles, despite the knowledge that the whole thing was set up by others, Benedick and Beatrice are happy in love
  —perhaps this happiness is more important than dignity and freedom.
• As Benedick puts it, “man is a giddy thing,” and the play ends with joyous dancing.

Question 5

the different themes of much ado about nothing

Answer 5

• love and masquerade
• courtship, wit and warfare
• language, perception and reality
• marriage, shame and freedom