Much Ado About Nothing

Don Pedro is an enigmatic figure. He is involved in the action of the plot, but also ends the play “sad” and alone. Imagine that you are playing the part of Don Pedro in a production of Much Ado About Nothing, and write an analysis of his character that explains his behavior. Why, for instance, does he offer to woo Hero for Claudio? How sincere is his proposal to Beatrice?

Why might Shakespeare have written Don John as such a broad, cartoonish villain? What purpose does his scheming serve, and how would the play work differently if he were a more rounded character? How does he compare to Borachio, who helps with his schemes but also feels guilt and regret?

Compare the parallel scenes in which the gentlemen bait Benedick and the ladies bait Beatrice. What do you notice about their different methods? What do those methods say about the social differences between the gentlemen and the ladies, and between Benedick and Beatrice?

Compare Benedick’s and Beatrice’s private love speeches. Why is Benedick be so voluble, and Beatrice so brief? How do these contrasting speeches illustrate the differences between their characters? Draw on examples from two other scenes to support your answer.

Drawing on what the play depicts about Beatrice and Benedick’s personalities, write the half-finished love sonnets they try to compose for each other. Annotate the sonnets to explain your choices: What might these poems say about the nature of their love? How would they express their feelings? Would the sonnets be like or unlike Claudio’s epitaph for Hero?

Much Ado About Nothing is full of sexual anxiety: characters are forever worried that someone is going to cheat on them, and they are ready to see deceit even where there isn’t any. What does all this worry say about what sex and romance mean in the play’s world? Choose three scenes or speeches to illustrate your answer.

Write a scene set ten years after the action of the play. How might Hero’s relationship with Claudio have developed, and Beatrice’s with Benedick’s? What is Don Pedro doing these days? Choose lines from the play to support your ideas, and include an explanation of how you have chosen to translate those lines into your own scene.

At the beginning of the play, a messenger joyfully reports that there have been only a few casualties in the recent wars, “and none of name.” In other words, almost no one died, and those who did die didn’t matter because they weren’t nobles. Using this line as a foundation, write about the role that class and rank play in Much Ado About Nothing. What are three effects of class and rank that are essential to the play’s plot?