"Discuss the themes of 'noting' and 'deception' in Much Ado About Nothing"

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Much Ado About Nothing

“Discuss the themes of ‘noting’ and ‘deception’ in Much Ado About Nothing”

The play ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ was written by Williams Shakespeare in the late 1600’s and over four centuries later it is still a significantly popular play and has widespread appeal.

The play explores many themes including love, treachery, friendship, society and traditions. These five themes mentioned are still very much relevant in a lot of people’s lives today. You’ll find that a lot of television programmes, movies, magazines and novels are structured around at least one or more of these themes, if not all at the same time.

        

The title ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ gives you the impression that the play involves characters making a huge deal about nothing significant and worrying over irrelevancies. The structure of ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ is composed of three hoaxes, four withheld secrets, and three metamorphoses so reality that might actually be true. The reason being the play simply but cunningly tails the relationships of four main characters within the play, Beatrice, Benedick, Claudio and Hero. Although the structure of the play is based on the deception of Claudio in order to bring his love for fair Hero to an end, the highlight of the play is provided by the deception of Beatrice and Benedick with the objective of making them recognize or acknowledge their true affection towards each other. Only then does the play arrive at its climax.

Noting, deception and truth are the three main themes that make up the play, deception being the main theme, some deceive spitefully and others with best interests at heart. Nearly all of the characters in the play have at one point been deceived, been a deceiver or made some interference with what they see or hear, and accordingly making each character behave in the manner that they do.

Throughout the play Shakespeare uses the wittiness of the numerous characters taking part in the performance to demonstrate his fondness of using puns, sexual innuendos and creating double meanings. Puns, sexual innuendos and double meanings can be a technique of deception, the title ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ being the very first example. This is due to the way Shakespeare plays with the word ‘nothing’ in the title ‘Much Ado About Nothing’.

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In the late 16th century the word ‘nothing’ would have been pronounced ‘noting’ Thus, the play's title could read: "Much Ado About Noting". Already Shakespeare hints that there might be a double meaning involving the word ‘nothing’. Without a doubt many of the players participate in the actions of observing, listening and writing, or noting.

Also, in Shakespeare’s period, a ‘thing’ referred to a man’s genitals, so therefore the word ‘no-thing’ may have been an Elizabethan euphemism for female genitalia. This might insinuate Shakespeare’s love of using sexual innuendos to create double meanings, a means of deception and henceforth ...

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