Humor And Deception In Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing

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”Much Ado About Nothing” is a play supposedly categorised as a comedy but also revolves around more tragic features and components. Concepts such as a confused bustle of activity, a considerable emotional upset, and a great deal of talking that describe the main themes of the play are denoted by the words “ado” and “noting” found in the title of the play. Shakespeare uses techniques like irony, metaphors, simile and personification to help create mostly humour but also a sense of tragedy and tension within the play. A major subject of the play is deception in the forms of lies, trickery and eavesdropping. The results of deception in the sense of counterfeiting, masks or mistaken identity works in the favour of the plot and of course humour.…show more content…
Although the play is a comedy, it is a more sophisticated comedy; the humour comes from laughing at the people and the situations. However, Shakespeare’s plays often overlap in style and there is debate over which plays should be classified as tragedy, comedy and history. For instance, “Much Ado About Nothing” is normally classified as a comedy, but follows many of the tragic conventions. Such as how the plot is mostly driven by deceit, because many of the main characters are directly and greatly impacted by what they perceive the reality to be, versus what the reality actually is.One of the reasons the play is considered a comedy is that it is about relationships and humorous tricks characters play on one another, as opposed to murder and treachery like a tragedy such as Romeo and Juliet would have. Besides the theme of deception, the play addresses honour vs. shame, love, gender expectations, and personal transformation. Despite these thoughtful themes and motifs, however, the circumstances and events of the play are superficial and humorous. The tragic romantic comedy, “Much Ado About Nothing” continues to captivate readers and audiences four hundred years after it was written because it is truly one of the geniuses Shakespeare’s most amusing and best
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