Much Ado About Nothing Themes wjec-eduqas Shakespeare

Themes

Exam responses that are led by themes are more likely to reach the highest levels of the mark scheme. Exploring the ideas of the text, specifically in relation to the question being asked, will help to increase your fluency and assurance in writing about the play.

Your exam question could be on any topic. However, having a really good grasp of the following themes and, importantly, why Shakespeare explores these themes, will enable you to produce a “conceptualised response” in your exam. This list is not exhaustive and you are encouraged to identify other ideas within the novel.

• Love

• Gender roles and attitudes

• Deception

• Honour and virtue

• Wordplay

Love

Much Ado About Nothing is fundamentally a romantic comedy, and the key theme of love is explored in the relationships between Claudio and Hero and Benedick and Beatrice. Paternal love is also demonstrated in Leonato’s relationship with Hero and Beatrice.

Knowledge and evidence

• The majority of the plot in Much Ado About Nothing revolves around Hero and Claudio as romantic leads:

  • Claudio quickly falls in love with Hero, who is presented as innocent, pure and chaste

  • His love for Hero is often regarded as superficial, and possibly motivated by money, as he enquires whether Leonato also has a son (who would inherit)

  • Hero’s love for Claudio seems to be based on duty, as she is obeying her father’s wish for her to be married

• In Benedick and Beatrice, Shakespeare also presents us with two other romantic leads who love to hate each other:

  • That they are tricked into loving each other is arguably only possible because that love already exists in their hearts

  • They use their teasing and bickering to cover their true feelings

  • Due to its flaws, their love seems to be more realistic than the relationship between Claudio and Hero, as they are more compelling and charismatic

  • This is even though Benedick and Beatrice view love and marriage as a threat to freedom and free will

• Leonato demonstrates paternal love towards his daughter, Hero, and his niece, Beatrice:

  • He wants them both to find suitable husbands, so he shows his love via his desire for them to be secure

• The preparations for marriage made by Leonato for Hero also suggest the theatrical nature of love:

  • Like an actress, Hero has to be coached by Leonato before being proposed to

  • Claudio’s dramatic decision to leave Hero at the altar is also overly theatrical, as is Leonato’s over-reaction

• Sexual love is also indicated through the relationship between Margaret and Borachio:

  • However, this again appears to be superficial, as pretending Margaret to be Hero is more importantly a central plot device

• Throughout the play, love is linked to tricks, games and disguises:

  • Hero is won for Claudio by Don Pedro in disguise

  • Beatrice and Benedick are tricked into being together

  • This suggests that love is a game and can be manipulated

  • Individual characters are pieces in the game and can be moved and posed by others

• Beatrice compares love to a dance, presenting love as a series of steps or poses:

  • This could explain why Beatrice eventually marries Benedick, as tricked or not, they have already gone through all the motions of the dance

• For Benedick, love is like war — a woman restricts a soldier’s freedom and adventure, and then cuckolds him for his efforts

• The metaphor of love as war is extended throughout the play:

  • In Act 1 Scene 1, Leonato explains to the messenger that there is a “merry war” of wits between Beatrice and Benedick

  • This sets up a metaphorical parallel between wars of weaponry and wars of wit and love that lasts throughout the play

  • The schemes the characters play on each other are like military operations

  • In Act 2 Scene 1, Beatrice uses a situation from naval warfare to ask why Benedick has not come to match wits with her

  • Benedick erupts with frustration at Beatrice’s insults

  • He complains that he feels like a man “with a whole army shooting at me” and that “every word stabs”

• In the final act, Benedick concludes that he and Beatrice are “too wise to woo peaceably”

• Don Pedro also speaks of love as though it is war, suggesting they are more similar in nature than Claudio thinks:

  • Claudio and Hero contrast with this metaphor, as war is rough, whereas their love is seen to be soft and delicate

• Love in the play also often comes through imitation:

  • Beatrice is inspired by Hero’s engagement

  • Benedick’s annoyance with Claudio for falling in love suggests he is starting to feel the pressure to do the same

• Friar Francis’s suggestion to pretend that Hero was dead indicates that he believes that Claudio will love Hero more after her return from the dead:

  • This suggests love is increased by overcoming obstacles

• Ultimately, love and hate are not that far apart, and love comes with great risk of shame

What is Shakespeare’s intention?

• Shakespeare appears to contrast a literary, romantic notion of love, via Hero and Claudio, with a more realistic version in the characters of Beatrice and Benedick

• The play starts with Benedick’s strong views about love and marriage, establishing the key theme and beginning the journey to the characters of Benedick and Beatrice changing their views

• Their relationship is shown in contrast to the speedy engagement of Claudio and Hero, who appear to have a lot to learn

• Claudio appears to fall in love with Hero because she fits an Elizabethan feminine ideal

• Therefore, Shakespeare may be suggesting that romantic love is blind, as Hero is quick to marry Claudio despite him publicly shaming her, and she never questions his motives

• The play also questions what people are prepared to do for love:

  • Beatrice tests Benedick by asking him to kill Claudio

• But the ultimate message is that people can be changed by love, which conquers all

• This is why, despite an obvious plot parallel with Romeo and Juliet, the play ends well rather than tragically

Gender roles and attitudes

Whilst Much Ado About Nothing ends happily, it both reinforces and challenges traditional gender roles in its presentation of the female characters and of the male characters’ attitudes towards women

Knowledge and evidence

• The character of Hero represents a traditional portrayal of an Elizabethan feminine ideal, in which women are valued for their beauty and chastity, and rarely seen or heard in public:

  • She conforms to this ideal in most of the play, with Shakespeare even employing the dramatic device of her fainting when accused of infidelity by Claudio at the altar

• Hero is treated poorly by Claudio, Don Pedro and even her father, Leonato:

  • This is reflected in the bitterness and unpleasantness of the language used as Don John and Borachio plot against her and Claudio

• It is clear that she is expected to comply with her father’s wishes:

  • She is treated as an object to be sold and lacks the voice to defend herself against incorrect accusations

  • At the end of the play, Hero even ignores the fact that Claudio was so ready to believe the charges against her to marry him still

  • She also never questions his motives for wanting to marry her, reinforcing both her innocence but also her complete submission to male authority

• Hero does not seem to be excited on her wedding day, as she states in Act 3 Scene 4: “God give me joy to wear it, for my heart is exceeding heavy”: 

  • The fact of her gender and position means that she has been told what to do by her father her whole life, and now she will be told what to do by her husband for the rest of her life

• The society in the world of Messina is strongly patriarchal, in which the head of the household is expected to take care of the family:

  • Men hold positions of power and arguably have more freedom

  • This is evidenced when Leonato is so ready to believe the words of men over his own daughter’s

• But the character of Beatrice challenges gender stereotypes, as she holds the more male characteristics of being outspoken, cynical and witty:

  • She acknowledges the gender inequality inherent in marriage, saying that “Adam’s sons are my brethren” in Act 2 Scene 1

  • She believes men and women to be equal, made of the same material (earth and dust)

  • She is, therefore, unwilling to marry and have to be subservient to one of her equals

• Her frustration at her gender is most evident when Hero is abandoned at the altar, when she cries “O God that I were a man!”

• Benedick also worries about giving up his independence and freedom by getting married:

  • Although Beatrice has more to lose, Shakespeare begins to draw parallels between the two characters

  • They are an equal match as their courtship is a “merry war” of wit

• In Act 2 Scene 3, Balthasar’s song suggests that men should not have to change — women should just accept them as they are and should change themselves to accommodate them

What is Shakespeare’s intention?

• The subversion of traditional gender stereotypes in the character of Beatrice, and in Benedick’s eventual rejection of his male comrades in support of Hero, adds to the comedy of the play

• Elizabethan audiences would have been able to relate to both the literary models in the characters of Hero and Claudio, but also the more realistic Beatrice and Benedick

• Much of the comedy in the play results from the attitudes of the male characters

• The worthy attitudes of some of the male characters, such as Benedick and Dogberry, contrast with the objectification of Hero

Deception

Deception and disguise in Much Ado About Nothing are tools used for both good and bad, and Shakespeare even deceives his own characters through the use of dramatic irony, as the audience knows the truth throughout, even when the characters do not.

Knowledge and evidence

• This is a play full of falling for other people’s lies

• Don Pedro decides to help out Claudio by tricking Hero, telling him that “I will assume thy part in some disguise / And tell fair Hero I am Claudio”:

  • But this mistaken identity at the masked ball causes confusion and upset, fuelled by Don John lying to Claudio that Don Pedro actually loves Hero and wants her for himself

  • This is a failing on Claudio’s part, as being so easily manipulated into suspicion leaves him wide open to being deceived

• To get Benedick and Beatrice to fall in love, their friends and family deceive them into thinking they each have feelings for the other:

  • The apparent enemies are actually in love

  • Therefore, appearance and reality in the play are not always the same thing

• Eavesdropping is used as a dominant plot device, as almost everything happens because an eavesdropper heard about it:

  • Borachio gives Don John a lot of information that he has overheard, but this is ironic as it is his own boasts that are overheard by the watchmen, leading to the plot being revealed

• Don John’s scheme to ruin Claudio and Hero’s wedding is based on deceiving Claudio and Don Pedro into believing that Hero has been unfaithful

• There is deception in the play right until the end, as Leonato’s “niece” is actually Hero in disguise

• Even the play’s title suggests a lot of fuss about empty rumours and deception

• Ironicall