Much Ado About Nothing Research Paper
Much Ado About Nothing: The Meaning of True Love and Romantic Couples
Like many of his comedies, William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing involves young couples getting together, or trying to get together, and ends with the happy lovers getting married. On the surface this appears to be a rather fairy-tale like ending, and both sets of lovers in this play, Claudio with Hero and Beatrice with Benedick, seem to end the play in a happy relationship.
However, if we say, as William G. McCollom does in his essay “The Role of Wit in Much Ado About Nothing”, that “the governing action (the activity guiding the characters) could be formulated as the search in love for the truth about love” (165), then we can view the two sets of lovers as contrasting …show more content…
On two occasions during Much Ado About Nothing, Claudio is shown to have no faith in his relationship Hero, accusing both friends and Hero herself of betraying him. This lack of trust grows from the fact that Claudio and Hero haven’t had the chance to connect with each other in any meaningful way. Beatrice and Benedick, once they have finally admitted to having feelings for the other person, do have strong level of trust, however, as demonstrated by their staying together when the actions of Claudio threaten to tear them apart.
Claudio’s lack of trust is first demonstrated by the ease in which Don John is able to persuade him that Don Pedro has wooed Hero for himself. When Don John, pretending to think that Claudio is Benedick, tells Claudio that Don Pedro has confessed his love to Hero, Claudio doesn’t bother to seek further proof, instead immediately lamenting:
Thus answer I in name of Benedick,
But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.
‘Tis certain so. The Prince woos for himself.
Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love;
Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues.
Let every eye negotiate for itself
And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch
Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.
This is an accident of hourly
Like many of his comedies, William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing involves young couples getting together, or trying to get together, and ends with the happy lovers getting married. On the surface this appears to be a rather fairy-tale like ending, and both sets of lovers in this play, Claudio with Hero and Beatrice with Benedick, seem to end the play in a happy relationship.
However, if we say, as William G. McCollom does in his essay “The Role of Wit in Much Ado About Nothing”, that “the governing action (the activity guiding the characters) could be formulated as the search in love for the truth about love” (165), then we can view the two sets of lovers as contrasting …show more content…
On two occasions during Much Ado About Nothing, Claudio is shown to have no faith in his relationship Hero, accusing both friends and Hero herself of betraying him. This lack of trust grows from the fact that Claudio and Hero haven’t had the chance to connect with each other in any meaningful way. Beatrice and Benedick, once they have finally admitted to having feelings for the other person, do have strong level of trust, however, as demonstrated by their staying together when the actions of Claudio threaten to tear them apart.
Claudio’s lack of trust is first demonstrated by the ease in which Don John is able to persuade him that Don Pedro has wooed Hero for himself. When Don John, pretending to think that Claudio is Benedick, tells Claudio that Don Pedro has confessed his love to Hero, Claudio doesn’t bother to seek further proof, instead immediately lamenting:
Thus answer I in name of Benedick,
But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.
‘Tis certain so. The Prince woos for himself.
Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love;
Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues.
Let every eye negotiate for itself
And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch
Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.
This is an accident of hourly