Much Ado About Nothing: The Theme Of Love

Shakespeare uses his play “Much Ado About Nothing” to highlight the difficult nature of love. He uses characters, themes and ideas in the play to draw attention to different styles of love. The different types of love obvious in this play are: authentic love, mixed in with superficial and idealistic love. Additionally, Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130, mocks idealistic and overstated representations of love. He does this through dramatic devices like similes and metaphors, to engage audiences around the world.

Don Pedro and his men return from the war and visit the house of Leonato and his brother, Antonio. This unexpected meeting reunites Beatrice with her arch rival, Benedick, and it is here that Claudio and Hero fall in love. Beatrice and Benedick’s relationship highlights the significance of developing and building a genuine love based on humour and shared interests. Indifference to Claudio and Hero, Beatrice and Benedick do not base their relationship on bodily appearance, how rich they are or how popular they are so their love is more authentic and meaningful than Claudio and Hero. They didn’t get along at the start at the beginning of the play, at the stay they exchange insults and mock each other. This is obvious when Benedick says that he will “live a bachelor.” This characterises Benedick as an unwilling lover and a man who is dissatisfied (not inspired) with love. Beatrice’s unfriendliness toward Benedick is also open when Benedick declares: “She speaks poniard’s and every word stabs.” This simile represents the conflict between him and Beatrice and helps us to believe that there is no chance of love between the pair. However, the dynamic between the two changes following Don Pedro’s clever plan in the orchard. As a result, Beatrice states to Benedick in Act 4: “I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.”

Her emotional language shows the importance of her love for Benedick. This is a love that has developed from insults. As Benedick states: “thou and I are too wise to woo peacefully.” His use of the word wise recommends that relationships must be built on more than appearance and wealth. People must have a deeper connection if they want their relationship to last.

Dogberry who acts as a clown in “Much Ado About Nothing”, consistently twisting his sentences, and lacking to measure the significance of details in his interactions with the others . He often slows down the play with his ridiculous mispronunciation of words ,for example, he states that Borachio is worthy of “redemption” when he obviously means that Borachio is worthy of “condemnation.” He dangers his salary when he pathetically misunderstands his employer’s hopes , having required that his job is only to “watch,” he says that “a watchman is not required to arrest and interrogate suspicious characters”. When he foils Borachio’s plot, he seems more worried with Borachio’s use of the term “ass” than with the far severer threat Borachio has presented to Hero. (by regularly reminding the other characters that Borachio insulted him, Dogberry proves that he is really an ass.) In unbelievable ways, Dogberry expresses the human tendency to make errors of perception and interpretation.

By overstating the human capacity for language error, Dogberry’s story throws into relief the more likely notational mistakes of Beatrice, Benedick, and Claudio. The play’s title supports his idea of long-lasting misinterpretation, Pronounced by an Elizabethan actor, “nothing” sounds like “noting,” and therefore the so-called “ado” is a result of our continuous inability to note what is actually happening around us. In Dogberry, this failure is laughable and ridiculous. Yet Dogberry’s clowning calls our attention to the more serious consequences of fault in our romantic and family lives, where a misunderstood sentiment can result in a broken engagement or worn relations between father and child.

Claudio and Hero are the perfect couple in the movie because of the male-controlled society that the story is based on. This is because Hero is shown as a weak and helpless young woman while Claudio is described as a dominant and admirable man. In the wedding Claudio decides to disgrace her and says ‘There, Leonato, take her back again Give not this rotten orange to your friend’. Even when Hero is being disrespected and alleged of being a prostitute she does not protect herself and says ‘Is my lord well, that he doth speak so wide?’ Instead of defending herself she asks if Claudio is alright which shows a mark of weakness in her.

Finally, Shakespeare’s texts demonstrate that love can be authentic, superficial or idealistic. His characters are important because they test us to reflect on the nature of our own relationships. They remind us that the most satisfying love can be found in connections with others.