That lik’d, but had a rougher task in hand,
Than to love:
But now I am rentern’d, and that war-thoughts,
Have left their places vacten: in their rooms,
Come thronging soft and delicate desires,
All prompting me how fair young Hero is,
Saying I lik’d her ere I went to wars.’
Don Pedro: ‘ Though wilt be like a lover presently,
And tire the hearer with the book of words.
If though dost lover Fair Hero, cherish it,
And I will break the news with her, and with her father,
And thou shalt have her: was’t not to this end,
That though should began’st to twist so fine a story.’
This is a key point in the play as the main plot is around Claudio and Hero. Don John, Don Pedro’s bastard brother, is the villain and he plans to break apart Hero and Claudio. Don John hates happiness, he hates it when there is joy or celebration and he always try’s to spoil everyone’s fun. His first plan fails, and so he devises an even more evil plan.
Don John: ‘I would rather be a canker in a hedge, than a rose in his grace, and it better fits my blood to be disdain’d of all, than to fashion a carriage to rob love from any: in this (though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man) it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain: Imam trusted with a muzzle, and enfranchis’d with a clog, therefore I have decreed, not to sing in my cage: if I had my mouth I would bite: if I had my liberty I would do my liking: in the mean time let me be that I am, and seek not to alter me.’
As this is going on Beatrice and Benedick who appear to hate each other, always arguing and trading insults, have also been tricked.
Benidick: ‘What my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?’
Beatrice: ‘ Is it possible Disdain should die, while she hath such meet food to fed it, as Signoir Benidick? Courtesy itself must convert to Disdain, if you come in her presence.
This is where Shakespeare has used eavesdropping, and this brings Beatrice and Benedick together as they reveal their true feeling to each other unaware that they have been fooled. Shakespeare incorporated the use of lower class as comedy for less important characters in Much Ado About Nothing for entertainment. Dogberry the constable and his right hand man Verges ran around pretending they were riding horses. Don John has devised a wicked plan to tell Claudio that Hero has been unfaithful and slept with another man, he stages this in the window of Hero’s quarters, and then Claudio sees this, but he does not know that it is not Hero, but another women. At the wedding Claudio says he will not marry Hero, as she is not pure. This is the main plot of the play, and the main scene. Everyone is shocked at this and Hero faints. Claudio leaves angry with his friends. Shakespeare uses this to make his audience feel a sense of loss and disappointment as further on he lifts the mood and everything falls into place. Hero’ family decided to tell everyone that she has died of distress. This makes Claudio guilty and he promises to marry Loenarto’s niece, who is really Hero, and he marries her then after seeing her and knowing it is Hero. Beatrice and Benedick are able to marry with the help of their friends who showed them how they really felt about each other.
Shakespeare consistently has happy endings that usually have love and marriage. In Much Ado About Nothing the ending involves lovers resolving their differences or a problem that had been keeping them apart. The plot is uncovered and Don John is revealed as the villain and punished for his crime.
In this play Shakespeare has used his structure that love creates havoc in the world as well as leaning towards a sense of strange but amiable instincts of man, or a greater emphasis on the mean and cruel instincts of man. This is still a romantic comedy that says love is the source of complications and presents irrational instincts in mankind. It includes characters that oppose to the happiness of the comedy and love. This play is difficult to balance with a sense of comic form as well as an awareness of more disturbing qualities in people. Much Ado About Nothing is about love being threatened rather than love in tension. Shakespeare creates tension and suspense in his plays. His dramatic technique is the way he presents the play, in the way in which it is written, the way the plot characters are organized and in his use of soliloquy, monologue and dialogue as well as eavesdropping. The way his characters interact and react with each other keeps people interested in his play.
Shakespeare’s language is not one most people in the modern world appreciate and that is because there are many words we cannot understand and many scenes we cannot grasp as his sense of humour is in some way beyond us. But sarcasm is not as easy to read, as it is to watch or speak. The Elizabethan audience would have loved this play as it has celebration and fun and there are parts of the play where three is tension as well as relief and audience would have been involved in the play and felt a part of it and relation to the play. A modern audience that could grasp the play would appreciate this play and enjoy the themes and the way everything falls into place. Both the Elizabethan audience and modern audience would enjoy the way how what a character does effects the other characters and sets the play into motion and changes of theme. For example at the start of the play Beatrice and Benedick hate each other and as the play nears the end they fall in love and are to be wed. These changes make us feel emotionally attached to the characters as we can find that in ourselves we have felt love and hate and we try to understand the love that came about.
The play has been written in Shakespeare’s own unique way, he has used prose and poetry. Poetry was mainly used when a character was talking or thinking to themselves. There is a use of soliloquy, when a character is speaking on his own to himself, this is usually when he is thinking alone. He cannot just think, he has to speak so the audience can know what he is thinking. Monologue is much the same thing, when one is dictating to himself. Dialog is used, when there is a conversation between two or more people such when Beatrice and Benedick are taking at the masked ball to each other. The atmosphere of the ball was a fun celebratory mood and yet Beatrice and Benedick still feel the need to trade insults with each other.
Shakespeare’s writing is at many a time contradicting or expressed in a way we cannot understand. But those who have an eye for Shakespeare’s play who thrive on the plentiness of this play. It has it all, the plots, the happiness, love, hate and confusion. This particular play was very interesting; I was very intertrested in it and found it difficult and challenging to do this course work. You cannot compare Shakespeare’s plays but you can note the style he writes in. Most his plays are written in the same style, but not all. Mid Nights Summer Dream and Romeo and Juliet and both written in the same style, with comedy and drama involved.