Preview

Much Ado About Nothing - Transcends Time Essay Example

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1052 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Much Ado About Nothing - Transcends Time Essay Example
The storyline of Much Ado About Nothing revolves around the drama that occurs over slight misunderstanding; a whole lot of fuss about matters that are ultimately not all that important. Shakespeare’s use of comedy in the play transcends time by dealing with issues in a comedic way that always has and always will be relevant and universal. In Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare is successful in humouring and entertaining the audience from any time period. With the use of witty dialogue, animal imagery, sexual innuendo, malapropisms and including funny situations and characters, Much Ado About Nothing is similar to modern day comedy movies and TV shows. This proves that the type of humour Shakespeare strives to attain is carried out well into the 20th and 21st centuries.

In Much Ado About Nothing animal imagery and references are used to relate certain characters to animals by the way they act, speak or look. In most cases, the references are insulting and are intended to be derogatory. Don Pedro relates Benedick to a bull, wild, tough and hard to handle, in the line “In time, the savage bull doth bear the yoke”. This is intended to say that even Benedick will surrender to love and marriage sooner or later.

Benedick insults many characters in the play by using animal imagery. An example of this is when Balthazar is singing, Benedick says, “An he had been a dog that should have howled thus, they would have hanged him”, meaning that Balthazar sings how a dog does and deserves to be hanged. Beatrice also uses animal imagery to an extent, to create humour and exaggerate her point when she says “ I would rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me”.

Another technique to provide humour in Much Ado About Nothing is witty dialogue. In the play Benedick uses witty language to applaud, yet insult Beatrice at the same time when he says “I would my horse had the speed of your tongue and so good a continuer”. This is witty and humerous

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    As the dancing commences, we learn a great deal about their personalities. Beatrice, who recognizes her own rebelliousness and bluntness and their effects on others, especially men, has been hurt by Benedick sometime in the past; Benedick is vulnerable to Beatrice's insults (by the end of the scene, Benedick is at his most infuriated with Beatrice's insults, referring to her as a Harpy and as Lady Tongue; he asks Don Pedro to send him on any errand, no matter how ridiculous, just to get him away from Beatrice). This shows the clear divide in attitutdes however , if analysed deeper it seems as if there are evident similarities between Benedick and Beatrice. They’re both exposed to each other’s abuses and somehow feel threatened by…

    • 833 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Beatrice's cunning and haughty barb to a masked Benedick shows her averseness to Benedick. In addition to this, she further insults Benedick by the words 'dull' and 'fool.' it impies that Benedick is gray, boring and imbecilic, contrary to what Benedick thinks about himself. The choice of words add further insult to Benedick as they are strong words, not used in their ordinary fights, showing Benedick the true hatred of him by Beatrice for a variety of reasons. The satirical paraphrase 'only his gift is devising impossible slanders' is particularly wounding to Benedick as it alludes to the fact that he is useless, and is not good at anything, from love to war, it's clearly sacritical as it amuses other people, while still affecting Benedick and her…

    • 1600 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Benedick Foil

    • 990 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Out of the 37 plays and 154 sonnets that Shakespeare wrote, “Much Ado About Nothing” has become one his most popular pieces. The comedy follows Don Pedro, Claudio, and Benedick after they return home from war. Upon meeting Hero, Claudio immediately falls in love with her, and with the help of Don Pedro, Hero agrees to marry him. As they prepare for the wedding, Don Pedro plans to get Beatrice and Benedick together while Don John plots to ruin Hero and Claudio’s relationship. Both succeed, as Beatrice and Benedick admit their love for each other, and Claudio shames Hero at their wedding, believing that she had cheated on him. By the next day, they discover that Don John had staged the scene, and Claudio and Hero still got married, and Benedick got engaged to Beatrice. Throughout the play, Shakespeare uses character foils to emphasize the traits of his characters, and add to his story. In the play, “Much Ado About Nothing” by William Shakespeare, Benedick and Claudio are foils of each other because of their personality traits, choices, and reaction.…

    • 990 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the text, Much Ado About Nothing, many of the characters show comedic and tragic aspects. Even though most characters in the text show different aspects and traits, Benedick shows the most tragic and comedic aspects. An example of Benedick showing comedic aspects would be in act 2 scene 1; Benedick disguises himself with a mask along with changing his voice. Benedick disguises his voice with an accent, which brings humor to the reader, and or audience (if watching the movie). Another example, from the movie, of Benedick being humorous would be when Benedick is overhearing Leonato, Don Pedro, and Claudio saying Beatrice is in love with him.…

    • 277 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    First of all, a quick summary of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Anything. In the beginning of this story a respectable noblemen named Leonato, his daughter Hero, and his clever niece Beatrice are waiting on the arrival of friends from the war. The group of friends include prince Don Pedro, and two of his fellow soldiers; Claudio, who is an up and coming young nobleman, and Benedick a man known for his battle skills and witty jokes. Also within the group of friends are; Don Pedro’s illegitimate brother Don John and his entourage of two people. When the soldiers arrive at Leonato’s home, Claudio is very taken by Leonato’s daughter Hero. While Benedick and Beatrice continue a mutual hatred for each other through a confrontation of crude insults. Claudio and Hero shortly after meeting pledge…

    • 1305 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The movie “Much Ado About Nothing”, though similar to the original play by William Shakespeare, has subtle differences. Although the dialogue in the movie is the same as the original play, the settings and emotional intent are better represented in the film. So, the overall meaning of the story isn’t diminished but preserved and enhanced. In Summary, the movie is a good representation of the original play that William Shakespeare would be proud of.…

    • 600 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    2013 brought us a new take on the Play “Much Ado about Nothing” by William Shakespeare. The new film was adapted, produced and directed by Joss Whedon who also created the Buffy the Vampire movie along with it’s series. “Much Ado” unlike the Kenneth Branagh Version is set in Modern Day along with a black and white indie film look to it. The film sticks to the language of William Shakespeare respectively and follows the plot to it as well. The play is pretty much a story about a bunch of rumors that get mixed up with one another leading to very confused characters accidentally falling in love with one another or out of it.…

    • 713 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The book Much Ado About Nothing is a surprisingly fascinating story. Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare is similar to his other work in which people fall in love. In this story people cause problems to break relationships and love apart. Nevertheless true love finds its way back. What makes Much Ado About Nothing unique is trickery and deceit plays a huge roll in romance.…

    • 825 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The plot of Much Ado About Nothing centrals around misunderstanding, as during the Elizabethan era “Nothing” was pronounced “Noting”, meaning to observe, to take notice of or to write something down – take note of something, as the reader learns the play revolves around observation and surveying, however often these ‘notings’ are not continuously accurate, they are often misinterpreted or misunderstood and also misreported. The title highlights the idea of how lack of careful noting habitually results in tragic consequences. Furthermore ‘nothing’ during the Elizabethan era was the colloquial term for vagina. As the plot also revolves around men, their relationships or lack of relationships with women, this places women as the main focus of the play as the title could be portrayed as revolving around them this creates a more powerful image of women throughout the play.…

    • 1460 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Much Ad About Nothing

    • 823 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare presents an interesting relationship between the characters of Beatrice and Benedick. We can compare their relationships with the poems ‘Sonnet 130’, ‘Sonnet 43’ and ‘Salome’ and the relationships presented in them. Although Shakespeare includes a conventional relationship between Hero and Claudio, he also decides to involve a different affair between Beatrice and Benedick.…

    • 823 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The time period in which “Much Ado About Nothing” was written directly pertains to its plot, thoughts, and mannerisms of the audience that they play was written for. The play was written in 1598 and produces two plots one being an unconventional love plot involving a strong woman named Beatrice who does not conform or choose to conform to the societal expectations put upon her in a traditional way. “Much Ado About Nothing” highlights the negative female stereotypes, magnifies the connotations that men should overpower and control woman,and that women are evil “cuckholds”, whom no one should trust. Beatrice’s character portrays these negative expectations of gender, deceptions of the opposite gender, and gender prejudices using her love story with Sir Benedick and with the addition of her witty nature, and…

    • 849 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The allegory of "A New England Nun" is rather obvious yet discreet. The reader would not notice it unless her or she were to critically analyze the existence of the animals. These animals have similar points and are in similar situations as the main character, Louisa Ellis. The dog, Caesar, and the little yellow canery are symbolic forms of Louisa Ellis.…

    • 435 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In George Orwell’s Animal Farm, Benjamin, a soft-spoken donkey, finds his once peaceful home transformed into a tyrannical dictatorship led by a power-hungry pig named Napoleon. Because of Benjamin’s reserved nature, he ultimately was able to lead Animal Farm into its oppression. Benjamin’s silence, his ability to follow without question, and his inability to share his wisdom with the other animals turned him into one of the main contributors to the tyrannical behavior that occurred and the loss of freedom and equality on Animal Farm.…

    • 795 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Much Ado About Nothing”, a comedy written by Shakespeare, tells us the story of a complex love story between two pairs of lovers. Recently, I had watched two adaptations of this play. One was the original play written by Shakespeare and directed by Branagh. The other adapted by David Nicholls and directed by Brian Percival. The Shakespearean adaptation takes place in the Renaissance era of Messina, Italy. The adaption by David Nicholls takes place in the modern era, in England. Clearly, the Shakespearean version is much older, and so it differs from the modern adaption greatly. In terms of setting, feminism and language, distinct differences can be found.…

    • 901 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the novel ‘Animal Farm’ written by George Orwell both Benjamin the donkey and the sheep are introduced on page two, “Benjamin was the oldest animal on the farm, and the worst tempered” and “the sheep and cows lay down behind the pigs.” This is the first introduction of the animals on the farm and it immediately gives the reader an indication about how important they will be in the novel as the sheep have not even been described all the reader knows is where they lay and gives the reader an idea on their status compared to the other animals.…

    • 2060 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Good Essays