Much Ado About Nothing: Writer's Methods and Techniques (Edexcel GCSE English Literature)

Writer’s Methods and Techniques

“Methods” is an umbrella term for anything the writer does on purpose to create meaning. Using the writer’s name in your response will help you to think about the text as a conscious construct and will keep reminding you that Shakespeare purposely put the text together.

The best responses at GCSE don’t limit their analysis to individual words and phrases. Examiners are really looking for analysis of Shakespeare’s overall aims, so try to take a “whole-text” approach to writer’s methods and techniques. Each of the below topics do just that:

• Form

• Structure

• Poetry and Prose

• Literary Devices

Form

Much Ado About Nothing is a Shakespearean comedy, and a joyous one at that. It is full of love, music, trickery and merry-making. However, all Shakespearean comedies also have an element of tragedy, or the potential to turn into one. It is important that the examiner knows from your essays that you understand the conventions of comedy, as this is a valuable – and sophisticated – understanding of the writer’s craft and methods.

 Shakespearean comedies usually consist of:

• Love and Marriage: Comedies generally tend to have love and marriage as a central theme:

  • Typically, weddings are seen as symbols of happiness and new beginnings, which Shakespeare deemed crucial enough to represent in multiple marriages in some of his plays

• Mistaken Identity and Misconception: Shakespearean comedies often derive humour from the misunderstandings and misinterpretations of characters:

  • Shakespeare uses dramatic irony – in which the audience is aware of things that the characters are not – for comic effect

  • Characters often impersonate someone, or are mistaken for someone else

  • In addition, wordplay adds to the confusions and misunderstandings

• Fools: The presence of “fools” in Shakespeare’s comedies allows for parody, further misunderstandings or, in the case of Much Ado About Nothing, inadvertent resolution

• Happy Ending: All Shakespearean comedies have happy endings, with at least one marriage:

  • The happy resolution in Much Ado About Nothing is represented by dancing

Structure

The structure of a comedy

Many of Shakespeare’s comedies follow the same five-part structure:

1. Exposition: this is the introduction to the play for the audience, and an introduction to the themes and atmosphere. In Much Ado About Nothing, the setting of Messina is introduced, as well as all of the major characters. The “merry war” of wits is revealed early on between Benedick and Beatrice, purity and naivety in love as represented by Claudio and Hero, and a hint of menace with the introduction of Don John in the soldiers’ party

2. Rising Action: here is when complications in the main plot are exposed and an inevitable chain of events starts. In Much Ado About Nothing, schemes, misunderstandings and eavesdropping begin, with Don Pedro wooing Hero on Claudio’s behalf, the trick to fool Benedick and Beatrice into falling in love with each other, and Don John’s plans to ruin Claudio’s happiness

3. Climax: this is the point in the play where the tension and excitement reach the highest level. Here, the climax of the play is the wedding that wasn’t, with Claudio publicly rejecting Hero at the altar for her alleged infidelity

4. Falling Action: this is the event that occurs immediately after the climax has taken place and the action shifts towards resolution instead of escalation. Friar Francis comes up with the plan to pretend that Hero died of humiliation to enable time for her name to be cleared, and the watchmen overhear Borachio confessing to his part in the deception, leading to his arrest and the eventual revelation of Hero’s innocence by Dogberry

5. Denouement: normality and the natural order is restored. With Hero’s innocence established, but Claudio still thinking her dead, he is lured back to the altar to wed Leonato’s supposed niece. However, Hero reveals herself to be the bride and they are married. In addition, Benedick and Beatrice admit their love for each other, and the play ends with dancing

Comedic Conventions

• Although both tragic and comedic elements can be found in Much Ado About Nothing, it is primarily a romantic comedy

• While the darker elements of the play involve Hero’s public humiliation and “death”, it includes many classical comedic elements, such as misunderstandings, wit, wordplay and foolery

• In addition, nobody actually dies, and the play ends with marriages, making it a comedy as the theme of love is prevalent:

  • We are presented with a pair of lovers in Claudio and Hero, who overcome the obstacles in their relationship ultimately to be united

  • It could be argued that Beatrice and Benedick also overcome the barriers to love they have both placed around themselves in order to finally admit their feelings in the end

• The play employs comedy through language:

  • Beatrice and Benedick engage in clever wordplay, metaphors and insults throughout the play

  • In addition, Dogberry’s use of malapropisms gives the audience a character to both mock and admire, as he does the right thing in arresting Borachio and ensuring his confession to Leonato

  • He and Verges also play the parts of fools, another common comedic device

• The plot of a Shakespearean comedy is often driven by mistaken identity:

  • In Much Ado About Nothing, this is an intentional part of Don John’s plot

• In many Shakespearian comedies, it was also common for women to disguise themselves as men as a plot device:

  • This does not happen overtly in Much Ado About Nothing, but it could be argued that Beatrice’s more masculine, outspoken qualities are a form of disguise

Poetry and Prose

• Shakespeare used three forms of poetic language when he wrote his plays:

  • Blank verse

  • Rhymed verse

  • Prose

• Much Ado About Nothing is unusual in that very little of it is actually written in verse – most of it is written in prose

• Shakespeare used these different forms of language for dramatic purposes to perform different functions:

  • To distinguish characters from one another

  • To reveal the psychology of characters

  • To show character development

Blank verse

• Blank verse consists of unrhymed lines of ten syllables, although it does not always exactly fit that pattern

• Typically in Shakespeare plays, blank verse represents human feelings in speeches and soliloquies, as well as the everyday ordinariness of life

• In Much Ado About Nothing, Beatrice’s soliloquy in Act 3, Scene 1, is written in blank verse, reflecting her emotional vulnerability in this scene

Rhymed verse

• Rhymed verse consists of sets of rhyming couplets: two successive lines that rhyme with each other at the end of the line

• Shakespeare frequently used rhyming couplets to end a scene or a character's dialogue

• In Act 3, Scene 1, Hero uses a rhyming couplet as she exits after tricking Beatrice when she says “If it prove so, then loving goes by haps// Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.”

Prose

• Prose is unrhymed lines with no pattern or rhythm

• Shakespeare used prose for serious episodes, letters or when characters appear to be losing their minds (when it would be unrealistic for them to speak poetically)

• In Much Ado About Nothing, Benedick’s speech in Act 2, Scene 3, after he has overheard Don Pedro, Leonato and Claudio in the garden, is spoken in prose, as his response to what he has heard seems to be based on a sort of logic

• He makes a set of observations and finds evidence to back up his deductions

• Benedick employs witty prose as a defence mechanism

Literary Devices

• Shakespeare uses dramatic irony throughout the play:

  • For example, the audience knows that Don John still despises Don Pedro, even though he has supposedly made peace with him

• Hyperbole is also used as a form of wordplay, as in when Benedick tells Don Pedro that he will perform any service for him rather than be made to speak with Beatrice in Act 2, Scene 1:

  • The “merry war” itself between Beatrice and Benedick is an oxymoron

• Shakespeare uses the imagery of fire to demonstrate characters’ passion, such as when Beatrice overhears Hero and Ursula’s conversation in Act 3, Scene 1, she asks “What fire is in mine ears?”

• Shakespeare also employs animal imagery in the exchanges between Beatrice and Benedick, and in references to them made by other characters, perhaps to suggest the wildness of their love/hate relationship:

  • Benedick declares that if he ever succumbs to the pangs of love, he will be like a trapped animal

  • When Beatrice finally acknowledges her love for Benedick, she implies that she is like an animal which needs to be tamed: “Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand,” (Act 3, Scene 1)

• Shakespeare’s characters in Much Ado About Nothing often play on the different meanings of words:

  • Dogberry, for example, uses his words incorrectly

  • This shows that language is open to interpretation and nothing is as it seems

• Shakespeare positions the immature Claudio and Hero as foils for Benedick and Beatrice, making the eventual marriage between the latter two characters even more surprising:

  • Dogberry, with his pretentious officiousness, also acts as a foil for the more intellectual characters in the play, highlighting the cleverness of the main characters

  • This also creates situational irony when Dogberry unmasks Don John’s schemes