The role of deception in much ado about nothing by william shakespeare

Authors Avatar

        Hareem Bhatti-Sutton Grammar school

Deception in Much Ado about Nothing

Much ado about nothing is set in a patriarchal world where women’s honour is very important. They have little to their name and no inheritance so they must protect their honour. The theme of deception directly links to the patriarchal society in Shakespeare’s time as shown throughout this play. Deception is important to this play as it links also with many of the other themes such as love and marriage. It is repeated in many of the scenes and has both positive and negative effects. In act 4 scene 1 deception appears in the form of the friar, holy man, who plans to deceive everyone. In act 5 scene 4 Claudio is deceived and is made to believe he is marrying Antonio’s daughter.

In the fourth act, the friar conspires to trick Claudio into believing Hero is dead. He says, ‘maintain a mourning ostentation and perform all rites that appertain unto a burial…’ this shows that even a man thought to be holy and righteous can be deceiving in this play. He is trying to make Claudio feel guilty and make him fall in love with Hero again.

However, Don John is the main deceiver in this play and is the cause of Hero’s slandering. He make Claudio think Hero has deceived him. In the scene before even her own father thinks Hero has deceived him. Hero’s reputation and the honour of her family is destroyed, she’ll have to go to a nunnery because she has lost her honour. Also, in this scene deception is linked to love. It shows how deception is more dangerous when you are in love as it causes more hurt, to both parties. This also leads on to the theme of marriage. Hero was shamed at her wedding in front of everyone after Claudio deceived her by pretending he was going through with it.

Join now!

We can also see that in Elizabethan times a couple would marry after seeing each other maybe only twice. This means that Claudio was unable to recognise that it was not Hero in the window and did not know her enough to deny that she had deceived him.

In the second half of act 4 scene one Benedick and Beatrice are alone. In this part there is a sudden swing from the harsh tones Shakespeare used into a gentler, tender scene where Benedick and Beatrice show their love for each other. Benedick says: ‘I do love nothing ...

This is a preview of the whole essay