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It probably doesn’t feel like nothing when exams come around. So, are you looking for some quick revision on Much Ado About Nothing or do you want to get a head start and see what the play’s all about? Well, you came to the right place, because this Much Ado About Nothing cheatsheet will show you what the ado is about!
Let’s start with a quick synopsis of this Shakespearean comedy set in Messina, Italy!
After the war, Leonato prepares a party for his soldier friends – Don Pedro and Claudio – and fellow soldiers – Don John (Don Pedro’s half brother who just reunited with each other) and Benedick. Leonato also asks the men to stay for a month.
At the party, Claudio falls in love with Leonato’s daughter, Hero. Don Pedro agrees to help Claudio woo Hero… which ends in success as Claudio and Hero agree to marry each other. Meanwhile, Benedick and Leonato’s niece, Beatrice, continue bantering and engaging in a battle of the wits. The other men plan to trick them to stop arguing and fall in love with each other.
Seeing all this love, Don John, prince Don Pedro’s illegitimate brother, plans a malicious scheme to ruin Claudio and Hero’s marriage. He works with his follower, Borachio, to trick Claudio into thinking that Hero is cheating on him. The night before Claudio and Hero’s wedding, they lure Claudio into witnessing Borachio and his lover, Margaret. Unluckily, Claudio falls for the trap, thinking that Don Pedro is together with Hero.
That night, the two Watchmen, Dogberry and Verges, overhear Borachio recounting his schemes to Conrade (Don John’s other follower). Borachio is immediately arrested and is interrogated. However, the Watchmen were unable to find the real culprit.
Next, on the day of the wedding, Claudio (falsely) accuses Hero of her infidelity. Hero stands up for herself and swears that she hasn’t been unfaithful. However, both Don Pedro and Don John claim that they witnessed her unfaithfulness. Mortified, she faints. The men leave the chapel. The priest, Friar Lawrence (who clearly hasn’t seen Romeo and Juliet), who believes in her innocence, argues that she should pretend that she has died until they find more evidence. Meanwhile, Don John flees Messina.
Benedick takes this opportunity to confesses his love for Beatrice, who also feels the same way. They agree to get married, but Beatrice makes Benedick promise to kill Claudio for wronging Hero.
At the prison, Dogberry and Verges continue with the interrogation. Another man figures out the real plot. Meanwhile, Benedick challenges Claudio in a duel for killing an innocent girl. Claudio and Don Pedro both don’t take Benedick seriously and stand by what they did (because they still believe that Hero has been unfaithful).
However, a drunken Borachio comes and confesses that Don John is the real mastermind behind this plan. Both Claudio and Don Pedro feel guilty for Hero’s death and asks for forgiveness. So, Leonato suggests a way to make up for it. Leonato announces to the city that Hero was innocent, and therefore, Claudio must be punished by marrying Leonato’s mysterious “niece”. Claudio agrees.
When everyone is at the church, Claudio prepares himself to marry this mysterious woman. However, when the woman unveils herself, Claudio sees that it is Hero and that she is alive. He is overjoyed.
At Claudio and Hero’s wedding, Benedick announces that he loves Beatrice “friendly, non-sexual manner” but he doesn’t mind being wedded with her. So, they agree to get married.
The two couples dance before their weddings… and Don John is caught.
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We know it can sometimes get confusing to remember all of Shakespeare’s characters. So, here’s a short summary of all the important characters you need to know!
Leonato is the governor of Messina, father to Hero, and uncle and guardian to Beatrice. In the social hierarchy, he is second to Prince Don Pedro.
Hero is Leonato’s daughter. She is soft-spoken, respectful, and obedient; a model Elizabethan or Jacobean woman. She falls in love with Claudio, and Claudio falls in love with her. However, Don John attempts to wedge them apart.
Beatrice is Leonato’s orphaned niece and Hero’s cousin. She doesn’t care about marriage and social conventions and is very witty and strongminded; very different from the conventional Elizabethan or Jacobean woman. Throughout the play, Beatrice has a very comedic battle of the wits with Benedict, and by the end of the play, they marry. They’re rivalry and banter turning into love.
Claudio is a soldier who fought with Don Pedro. When he arrives at Messina, he falls in love with Hero. However, he is easily deceived and prone to jealousy, so he quickly falls victim to Don John’s lies and schemes.
Don Pedro is the Prince of Aragon and a well-respected soldier. He is Leonato’s friend and Don John’s half-brother. He is generous, intelligent, and values marriage. However, he is also quick to believe in the flaws of others, so he also falls victim to Don John’s schemes.
Don John is Don Pedro’s illegitimate brother. He is the villain of the play and is often referred to as “The Bastard”. He is depressed, mischievous and evil, and plans to ruin the people around him, including Claudio and Hero’s new relationship.
Benedick is a soldier of Padua who served in the war under Don Pedro. He has a great distaste for women, preferring not to ever marry. Throughout the play, he engages in a battle of wits with Beatrice. However, by the end of the play, he has changed his tune and agreed to marry her..
Borachio is Marget’s lover and Don John’s follower. He is quite creative and crafty. So, he is essential for bringing Don John’s schemes to life. However, he is also known for having no filter when he is drunk, which ultimately sabotages his schemes.
Marget is Hero’s maid and Borachio’s lover. As such, she unwittingly helps Don John’s schemes when Borachio tricks her.
Shakespeare’s time is very different from ours! That’s why it’s important to understand what his context is like, so we have a better understanding of his writing.
When you analyse Much Ado About Nothing, you will also need to analyse Shakespeare’s context and draw links to our modern world today!
During Shakespeare’s time, his society was highly patriarchal. Women were viewed as their father’s property who would then be passed on to their future husbands through marriage.
Marriage was a transaction, and the woman was the “gift”
Due to this, Elizabethan and Jacobean society often valued women who were obedient, soft-spoken, beautiful, and didn’t speak up against men. These women, they felt, made the perfect wife.
This was perfectly captured in Benedick’s soliloquy as he dreams of his perfect woman in Act 2, Scene 3:
One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet
I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all
graces be in one woman, one woman shall not
come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that’s certain;
wise, or I’ll none; virtuous, or I’ll never cheapen
her; fair, or I’ll never look on her; mild, or come not
near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good
discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall
be of what colour it please God. Ha, the Prince and
Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbor.
Here, he describes everything he wants in a woman, whilst comparing it to his high view of himself. It is idealised and exaggerated.
Women were expected to be “perfect” because they were believed to go to hell if they died unwed. Beatrice discusses this in Act 2, Scene 1:
No, but to the gate, and there will the devil
meet me like an old cuckold with horns on his
head, and say ‘Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you
to heaven; here’s no place for you maids.’ So deliver
I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter; for the
heavens, he shows me where the bachelors sit, and
there live we as merry as the day is long.
However, Shakespeare doesn’t embrace these conventions. He also mocks Elizabethan and Jacobean society’s unrealistic expectations of women.
During Shakespeare’s time, society had all sorts of punishments for women ranging from petty to violent. If a woman spoke up for herself against men, she would be tied to a wooden chair and dunked into the river. This was the cucking stool.
The scold’s bridle is another way to punish outspoken women. This was a metal cage placed over the woman’s head, with a piece of metal in her mouth. The scold’s bridle ensured that the woman couldn’t speak and was publically humiliated. This was particular brutal form of domestic abuse.
To effectively write about Much Ado About Nothing you need to have a thorough understanding of it. To get you started, let’s break down some key themes.
Different characters in Much Ado About Nothing have different perspectives on love and marriage. For instance, Don Pedro loves love, even though he is single himself. That’s why he helps Claudio and Hero, and Benedick and Beatrice get together.
Claudio falls in love with Hero in the first instance and calls her a “jewel”:
“Can the world buy such a jewel?”
As romantic as that sounds, suggesting that Hero is a jewel still highlights that he views women as property, reminiscent of Shakespeare’s context.
On the other hand, both Benedick and Beatrice hate the idea of marriage. In Act 1, Scene 1, Beatrice insults Benedick by calling him a bad suitor and that she has no need for romance:
“A dear happiness to women. They would else have been
troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold
blood I am of your humor for that. I had rather hear my dog
bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.”
In Act 2, Scene 1, she also says:
“What should I do with him? Dress him in my apparel and
make him my waiting gentlewoman? He that hath a beard
is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than
a man; and he that is more than a youth is not for me, and
he that is less than a man, I am not for him. Therefore I will
even take sixpence in earnest of the bearherd, and lead his
apes into hell.”
Here, the motif of the beard appears. The beard is used as a symbol of bachelorhood throughout the text. When the men get married, their beard is shaved off, like Benedick’s beard.
In Act 1, Scene 1, Benedick questions why men are still chasing after women when the women will probably cheat on them anyway:
“Is ’t come to this? In faith, hath not the world one man but
he will wear his cap with suspicion? Shall I never see a
bachelor of three-score again? Go to, i’ faith, an thou wilt
needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it, and
sigh away Sundays.”
This is quite a misogynistic view as he believes that all women will cheat. This employs the motif of the Madonna-Whore dichotomy of the period; an idea that women can only be pure, innocent, and obedient, or the exact opposite.
By the end, both Benedick and Beatrice succumb to societal conventions and agree to marry each other. However, how much they actually “love” each other is questionable. They’re tricked into believing they are loved unrequitedly by the other and it is the satisfaction of their egos that seems to drive them to declare their love for one another.
Throughout this play, Shakespeare highlights that love can be easily manipulated. We see many instances where characters hold disguises to find love – Hero pretending to be dead and disguising herself as her cousin – or are fooled into love – the elaborate ruse where Benedick and Beatrice are tricked into believing the other is deeply in love with them.
This makes an excellent segue into the next theme: appearance and reality.
Much Ado About Nothing is rife with the theme of appearances and deception. This reflects key philosophical concerns of the period: can we ever truly know the truth? How can we tell if somebody is lying to us?
For instance, Don John and Borachio trick Claudio into thinking that Hero is cheating on him with Prince Don Pedro in Act 2, Scene 1:
DON JOHN
(to CLAUDIO) Are not you Signor Benedick?
CLAUDIO
You know me well. I am he.
DON JOHN
Signor, you are very near my brother in his love. He is
enamored on Hero. I pray you, dissuade him from her. She
is no equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest
man in it.
CLAUDIO
How know you he loves her?
DON JOHN
I heard him swear his affection.
BORACHIO
So did I too, and he swore he would marry her tonight.
In this scene, Don John and Borachio aren’t the only ones lying; Claudio also falsely claims that he is Benedick to hear the juicy gossip that Don John has to offer. The only issue is, this was Don John’s cunning plan all along.
Another instance where this theme is prominent is when Don Pedro and Claudio try to trick Benedick and Beatrice into thinking that they are in love with each other.
In Act 2, Scene 2, Claudio, Don Pedro, and Leonato have a conversation about “Beatrice’s unrequited love”, knowing that Benedick is eavesdropping. In reality, Beatrice doesn’t love Benedick; the men are trying to plant a seed of hope in Benedick’s mind to hopefully turn him to love. This is in response to his earlier refusal to ever marry.
CLAUDIO
Oh, ay. (aside to DON PEDRO) Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl
sits.—I did never think that lady would have loved any
man.
LEONATO
No, nor I neither, but most wonderful that she should so
dote on Signor Benedick, whom she hath in all outward
behaviors seemed ever to abhor.
BENEDICK
(aside) Is ’t possible? Sits the wind in that corner?
LEONATO
By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it, but
that she loves him with an enraged affection, it is past the
infinite of thought.
The same ruse is used on Beatrice. In Act 3, Scene 1, Hero and Ursula talk about Benedick’s love interest in Beatrice, knowing full well that Beatrice can overhear their conversation:
HERO
(aside to URSULA)
Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing
Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it.—
(approaching the bower)
No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful.
I know her spirits are as coy and wild
As haggards of the rock.
URSULA
But are you sure
That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely?
HERO
So says the Prince and my new-trothèd lord.
URSULA
And did they bid you tell her of it, madam?
HERO
They did entreat me to acquaint her of it,
But I persuaded them, if they loved Benedick,
To wish him wrestle with affection
And never to let Beatrice know of it.
Furthermore, one of the most prominent scenes of deception is where Hero disguises herself as her own cousin to marry Claudio.
LEONATO (says to Hero)
Well, daughter, and you gentlewomen all,
Withdraw into a chamber by yourselves,
And when I send for you, come hither masked.
The Prince and Claudio promised by this hour
To visit me.—You know your office, brother.
You must be father to your brother’s daughter,
And give her to young Claudio.
Instead of playing with subtle appearances, this scene uses physical disguises. Claudio believes that he is truly marrying Leonato’s niece. So, when the veil is lifted and he sees Hero, he is pleasantly surprised.
The genre of comedy was about more than just the LOLs. It was fundamentally about bringing order to society. How was this achieved? Through marriage.
Historically, marriage was less about getting hitched to somebody you loved and more about uniting families and factions and tribes. Think about what we discussed earlier, women weren’t independent beings, they were the property of their fathers and then, after marriage, their husbands. Prior to the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, marriage was largely arranged by the parents of the bride and groom. Matches were made to ensure the stability and financial security of both families. The 1500s and 1600s saw this convention change, marriage began to be based around mutual attraction and love.
Comedies reflected the social importance of marriage. There was often disorder in the court or in society, such as Benedick’s refusal to marry or Claudio’s belief in being cuckolded, that was ultimately brought to order through marriage.
Much Ado both upholds this idea and challenges it. The marriages between Claudio and Hero and Beatrice and Benedick restore faith in the institution of marriage and bring social order, but they are somewhat arbitrary:
These matches beg the question: what’s more important, the institution of marriage or the happiness of a married couple?
The focus on infidelity is worth considering, here. Hero is accused of infidelity and Benedick is reluctant to marry because he worries he will be cheated on. The men fear being cuckolded and believe it will be inevitable. Yet, contrastingly, Balthasar’s song from Act 2, Sigh no more, tells women to put up with men’s infidelity because it is in their nature having “one foot in the sea, and one on shore.” There’s some clear hypocrisy here. Is this affirming such beliefs and behaviours or skewering them? The play is ambiguous, here.
This means you, the critic, needs to resolve the question: Does the focus on cheating mean that Shakespeare is making light of infidelity or is he mocking societal fears about female fidelity.
What do you think? Is Shakespeare speaking through Benedick when he declares of Balthazar’s song that had he “been a dog that should have howled thus, they would have hanged him”?
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Written by Matrix English Team
The Matrix English Team are tutors and teachers with a passion for English and a dedication to seeing Matrix Students achieving their academic goals.
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