Much Ado About Nothing Themes

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Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Kenneth Branagh, is a film adaption of William Shakespeare’s original play. In this film, we watch a humorous drama unfold regarding the love lives of our main characters, which uses elements of confusion and deception to. This film brought to light the different approach that the people had towards marriage and made me think about how social pride was such a big influence to the actions and attitudes of the main characters. The film is set in Messina, Italy, where a group of soldiers has arrived back from a war. They are comprised of Don Pedro, his illegitimate brother Don Jon, Count Claudio and Benedick. This is much to the delight of the town’s citizens - especially Governor Leonato, his niece Beatrice…show more content…
This works well and they are soon engaged, however, the villainous Don Jon has plans to break them up. He tricks Claudio into believing that Hero has been unfaithful by staging an affair with his henchman Borachio and Hero’s chamber maid, Margaret. Claudio is furious and publicly shames Hero at their wedding, in an attempt to restore the wounded pride which Hero had caused him to suffer. This results in her fainting, so the others take this as a chance to fake her death until the truth can be discovered. Don Jon also takes this as an opportunity to flee the city. Once it is brought to light that Hero was not unfaithful, Claudio is distraught and agrees to marry Beatrice to compensate for her death. While this is all going on, Benedick and Beatrice have resumed their war of wits and continue to voice their disgust in marriage. However, the others have different plans for the pair. They trick the two of them into believing that the other is in love with them, which causes them to realise their true feelings for each other - feeling which they refuse to admit to anyone. At the end of the film, there is a second wedding where Claudio comes to marry Beatrice, only for it to be revealed that it is actually Hero! Benedick and Beatrice also finally overcome their pride and reveal their love for each other. The film finishes with both sets of characters happily together in the end, dancing as they hear the news of Don Jon’s…show more content…
In the film marriage is mostly viewed as a very formal and necessary thing, which I felt relied on social propriety more than anything else. A good example of this was young Hero, whose alleged amorous liaison led to Claudio denouncing their marriage. He did this as he believed that Hero had badly humiliated him with her actions and that marrying her would be seen as a detriment to his pride. He shows these thoughts when he said “For thee I'll lock up all the gates of love and on my eyelids shall conjecture hang,To turn all beauty into thoughts of harm, And never shall it more be gracious.”. This quote portrays the way that, despite the beauty he saw in Hero, he felt that it was necessary to shame her order to regain his pride which she had caused him to lose. This prompted me to think that Shakespeare was trying to get us to understand how important it was for the people of that time to retain their pride and honourable status within social
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