Much Ado About Nothing: Themes (Edexcel GCSE English Literature)

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

• Ironically, Don John initially says that he is not capable of deception, as he “cannot hide what I am” in Act 1 Scene 3, meaning that he cannot hide his hatred of Don Pedro or that he is a villain

• It is only the Friar who trusts what he knows about Hero and what he can see with his eyes, which do not deceive him:

  • Instead, he calls into question the judgement of her accusers

What is Shakespeare’s intention?

• Deception, disguise and mistaken identity are common themes in many of Shakespeare’s plays, as are the plot devices of dramatic irony and eavesdropping

• This allows for comic elements arising from situations, as well as giving the villain of the play ample opportunity to make mischief

Honour and Virtue

Shame and dishonour, or the fear of it, is a central theme in Much Ado About Nothing, as it drives much of the action in the play

Knowledge and evidence:

• The fear of shame appears to be stronger than love in parts of the play:

  • Claudio is terrified that marrying Hero will dishonour him, so he publicly shames her

  • Leonato also makes it clear that his reputation is more important than his loyalty to his daughter

  • His rejection of her is absolute, as he wishes that she were not his daughter

• Leonato, Claudio and Don Pedro are all well-respected figures at the start of the play, but all three men have their reputation damaged by Don John:

  • Important relationships in the play are torn apart when characters lose respect for each other

• Hero’s reputation does not come from her actions, but is based on her position as Leonato’s daughter and what other people say about her:

  • Don Pedro grants Hero a positive reputation by saying that she is her father’s daughter

  • But this can just as easily be taken away, as Leonato, the source of her reputation, denounces her, destroying her reputation

  • Claudio’s reputation precedes him, and Hero’s bad reputation results from what he thinks of her as a result of Don John’s deception

• Don John’s plot also threatens Margaret’s reputation, although she is also cleared as innocent in the end:

  • This adds a dark tone as the women have little power to clear their own names and have to rely on others

• In Act 5 Scene 1, Leonato refers to Don Pedro and Claudio as “honourable men”, which might be interpreted as ironic, as he says they should add the murder of his innocent daughter to their list of praiseworthy deeds:

  • Their honour is undermined by their willingness to believe others

What is Shakespeare’s intention?

• Having a good reputation was important in Elizabethan England for both men and women

• Don John’s poor reputation is associated with him being illegitimate, as he is a symbol of infidelity

• In addition, a woman’s virginity was central to making her marriageable in Shakespeare’s day

• If this was lost, a man could reject her as worthless, no matter how beautiful or worthy she was

Wordplay

In Much Ado About Nothing, reality is defined by language, and the pun of the play is that many things that are “nothing”, such as events that have not really happened, are nonetheless “noted” by the characters and treated as something

Knowledge and evidence:

• In Elizabethan dialect, the word “nothing” was pronounced “noting”, so “nothing” could mean nothing much or noting, as in observing and overhearing:

  • All elements of plot and subplot are intertwined with instances of noting

  • Ultimately the events of the play are trivial

  • “Nothing” was also a euphemism in Elizabethan times, referring to female genitalia

• So tricks of language and wordplay are fundamental to both the plot and the humour of the play

• The play begins with Benedick and Beatrice engaging in their “merry war” of words and trading insults:

  • Benedick calls Beatrice a “parrot teacher”, accusing her of copying him

  • This is ironic as, it turns out, they are both imitators of each other

• Benedick also makes Claudio’s language mean something other than what he intended:

  • Claudio uses “jewel” to mean a rare and unique beauty, but Benedick uses it to mean something easily bought and ornamental

• The equal nature of Beatrice and Benedick’s relationship is clear as the plot unfolds:

  • The two are well suited in terms of wit and temperament

  • They both use wordplay in similar ways, such as the use of nature imagery, demonstrating their similar natures

• Tricks of language alone change entire situations in the play:

  • For example, the sonnets Benedick and Beatrice have written to each other stop them from separating once the trick to bring them together is revealed

• Benedick and Beatrice use humour and words as both armour and weapons to hide their true feelings

• Hero’s language reflects her sweetness and gentleness, just as Beatrice’s and Benedick’s reflect their sharp tongues

• Ironically, Dogberry is the only person with the knowledge to replace false language with the truth, but he is too incompetent and inarticulate to do so:

  • His inability to use language coherently causes the other characters to misperceive reality

  • He tries to be overly formal in his speech, whereas if he had just spoken plainly, the confusion leading to Hero’s demise could have been avoided

• Finally, in a play full of words, Don John is a man “not of many words” (Act 1 Scene 1), making him dangerous because he does not engage in wordplay:

  • The suggestion is that he is concealing something and is not to be trusted

What is Shakespeare’s intention?

• Shakespeare explores how language and communication affect our perception of reality, such as the perception that Hero is no longer a virgin, or that she is dead

• He also uses wordplay and humour to outweigh the potentially tragic nature of the play, as the audience knows the truth throughout