Nothing in Much Ado about Nothing by William Shakespeare - Essay Example

Nothing in Much Ado About Nothing forced to study William Shakespeare typically go into theirstudies with the impression that his works are a serious subject that requires hours of intensely difficult study. Without this kind of study, there is an impression that his plays cannot be understood or enjoyed. His most well-known plays are histories or tragedies, but he is also known for his romantic dramas and love sonnets. Like today's plays, Shakespeare's plays tended to include some element of social commentary as well as a bit of educational enlightenment. This is why his plays have made it into college classrooms and their popularity has endured through the centuries. He was a master at making almost universal commentaries about human organization and behavior in a way that also served to entertain. It's important to remember, though, that the original context for Shakespeare’s plays was the same context in which plays are performed today. They were originally intended to provide a simple evening's worth of entertainment for the price of a ticket with the hope that the audience would continue to come back for more. “Shakespeare’s plays were written to be performed to an audience from different social classes and of varying levels of intellect. Thus they contain down-to-earth characters who appeal to the working classes, side-by-side with complexities of plot which would satisfy the appetites of the aristocrats among the audience” (Geraghty). One of his more popular romantic comedies is the play Much Ado About Nothing in which the word 'nothing' takes on numerous meanings and has an effect on characters actions throughout the play. The play takes place at the home of Leonato, a nobleman of Messina and centers around the stories of two young couples. The female half of these couples are residents of Leonato's house, his daughter Hero and his niece Beatrice. The action begins with the expected arrival of the prince Don Pedro and his party including the male halves of these romantic couples. Claudio is a young nobleman and Benedick is a clever man who has proven himself valuable. An unwelcome part of the crowd is Don John, Don Pedro's illegitimate brother who expresses all the typical bitterness and resentment expressed in characters placed in this life role. Benedick and Beatrice are already acquainted with each other and quickly resume their years long banter back and forth. As they compete with each other over which one can get the most words in, Claudio and Hero are quietly falling in love with each other. They decide to marry with the wedding planned in a week. To help pass the time until the wedding day, Hero and Claudio agree with the others to play a game on Beatrice and Benedick designed to force them to finally admit their love for each other. The trick works, but it isn't the only one in the works. Don John, jealous and anxious to cause trouble, convinces one of his men to make love to Hero's maid Margaret at Hero's window one night. As Borachio is busy doing this, Don John brings Don Pedro and Claudio to the garden outside Hero's window where they believe they are seeing Hero being unfaithful to her betrothed. Naturally filled with rage, Claudio calls off the wedding, but does so in a very humiliating way at the ceremony in front of the gathering. The family, finally convinced she might be telling the truth that it wasn't her, decide to pretend she died of her shock and grief in the hope that the truth would come out. It nearly comes to a fight between Claudio and almost everyone else until the night watchman hears Borachio talking about what he'd done. Claudio, in his grief and to amend for his error, agrees to marry another one of Hero's cousins. It isn't until they are before the altar that Claudio finally realizes the veiled woman standing with him is really Hero. The play ends with Beatrice and Benedick getting married and everyone joining in a celebratory dance. One of the major motifs that runs through this play, giving it its multiplicity of meanings is the motif of nothing. There are several ways in which nothing plays a role to both shape the action and influence the characters' actions. The literal meaning of the word nothing means that there is an absence of something. Applied in this way to the play, it can be determined that there has been a lot of people upset and disgraced by nothing. Claudio has embarrassed Hero and her family although Hero has done nothing to deserve it. Normally, this would require Claudio to be punished, which is made clear in his expectation to pay the consequences of his mistake in the form of marrying Hero's cousin sight unseen. "I know not how to pray your patience; Yet I must speak. Choose your revenge yourself, Impose me to what penance your invention Can lay upon my sin; yet sinn'd I not But in mistaking" (5:2). It is also true, as Claudio points out, that he has done nothing in actuality. Although he thinks he is somewhat to blame for Hero's death, prompting him to offer himself to Leonato in this way, Hero is still alive and has just been waiting and hoping for her name to be cleared. It is because of this, and because it is known what the true desires of both young people are, that the game of having Hero appear as a veiled cousin until after she has received an oath of marriage from Claudio is played. Claudio is punished, but not for anything more than making a mistake. A similar fuss is being made about Beatrice and Benedick, trying to bring them together and a great deal of self-congratulating in the plot's success, but these two individuals would have realized on their own that they were really in love as discovered in their mutual enjoyment of the verbal battles they exchange throughout the play and even into their wedding. At the end of the play, it turns out that the entire evening has been spent watching a bit of nothing - a group of young people getting caught up in their drama and dragging the rest of the town along with them. However, there are other meanings for the word nothing that play a part in the play and have an effect on the characters. One important element of the word 'nothing' that could be easily missed by a modern audience is the idea that 'nothing' and 'noting' were once pronounced as homophones, especially in Shakespeare's time (Greenblatt). Homophones are two words that may be spelled differently but sound the same. Seeing the word under this definition, the many references in the play to 'noting' as in letter writing, spying or eavesdropping take on greater significance. None of the havoc that took place at the first marriage ceremony would have occurred without Claudio and Don Pedro agreeing to eavesdrop at Hero's window and Hero would not have been exonerated if it hadn't been for the night watchman eavesdropping on Borachio. Thus, note-taking or eavesdropping plays a significant role in the play as it induces Claudio into a rage that forces him to act publicly and rashly and it provides the means to a peaceful and happy resolution. The entire trick the others are playing on Beatrice and Benedick is also centered on such 'noting' as notes are passed back and forth between the supposed lovers and as various conversations about their feelings are engaged in with full knowledge that the conversation is being spied upon. The dual meaning of these notes is suggested in a conversation between Claudio and Leonato in act 2, scene 3: "Claudio: Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of. Leonato: O, when she had writ it and was reading it over, she found Benedick and Beatrice between the sheet?" In this passage, the written love notes that Claudio refers to are turned around by Leonato to suggest something sexual in nature as he intimates the couple should rightfully be found between the bedsheets. The understanding that nothing is a homophone for noting opens up yet more interpretations of the nothing in the play. According to Gordon Williams, the word nothing was often used as slang to refer to a woman's vagina in crude referral to her lack of a penis between her legs. This use of the term appears within the first scene of the first act when Claudio asks Benedick "didst thou note the daughter of Signor Leonato?" and Benedick answers "I noted her not, but I looked on her." In this exchange, Claudio is using the term note as in did you see Hero and recognize or notice her beauty. However, Benedick, true to character, answers back with a sarcastic reply, turning the word on its side and interpreting it for its sexual slur. This both sets up the play for the enjoyment of the commoners and establishes the principle concern of the play - the chastity or fidelity of Hero's vagina. As the chaste young maiden Claudio perceives her to be upon his arrival, verified somewhat by Benedick's assertion that he, at least, has not touched her, Hero is still the subject of sexual objectification. Without the concern about the chastity of Hero's 'nothing' as a result of the events at her window, there would be very little story to tell. When no one else believes her, it is the Friar who steps in to defend her 'nothing' by reminding others that he would be the one she'd confess to. As such, he is in the proper position to have been "noting the Lady" (4.1) and thus know whether her heart was pure or if she were indeed capable of doing as she is accused. Based on the Friar's input, rather than Hero's pleas, her family chooses to act out the parts the Friar recommends. Taken in this context, the play remains a great deal of fuss about a woman's vagina as the 'nothing' of the title. Throughout Shakespeare's play, then, the characters continue to shape their actions around the various ways in which the term nothing can be used, expending a great deal of physical and emotional energy all for the sake of a female's chastity and fidelity in marriage. In this respect, the play can almost be considered a play of manners, though it has a strong undercurrent of social commentary offered regarding the way in which women were valued in that time period - often considered to be only slightly more than nothing and thus easily interchangeable with another woman as long as she appeared similar to the object of affection. Using the term nothing to refer to possession of the woman's vagina brings attention to the idea that the woman was nothing more than an object to be won, a possession to be guarded. It is this concept that causes Claudio to become so enraged that he confronts Hero in public. Yet it is also a play about noting, as in exchanging messages and paying attention to what is being said by others to others as in spying or eavesdropping. Without engaging in these activities, Claudio and Hero's first wedding would have been successful, but Beatrice and Benedick would likely still be bantering rather than getting wed. Instead, the notes and eavesdropping lead both into and out of trouble as they bring both couples back together in the end. Since the play begins with a simple love story between two people who have never met and a continuing love story between two people who have known each other for years, the play is also about nothing that hasn't been happening for centuries even before the play was written. The action of the play is all based upon events that never actually happened either. Therefore, the play is literally about nothing - nothing happened between Hero and Borachio, nothing happened to Hero's health and nothing lasting was done to punish Claudio for his errors. In the end, it can even be argued that nothing was done to change the relationship between Beatrice and Benedick that wasn't going to happen anyway. Works Cited Geraghty, Jenia. “William Shakespeare. Twelfth Night.” Literature Study Online. (November 2002). Web. May 19, 2011. Greenblatt, Stephen. "Introduction." Much Ado about Nothing. The Norton Shakespeare. New York: Norton, 1997. Print. Shakespeare, William. Much Ado about Nothing. The Norton Shakespeare. New York: Norton, 1997. Print. Williams, Gordon. A Glossary of Shakespeare's Sexual Language. New York: Althone, 1997. Print. Read More