Drama text, Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare is a romantic comedy revolved around marriage, dishonesty and love. In 2007, the original play had been interpreted and adapted into a new film text; Much Ado About Nothing Shakespeare Retold. This new film version is an adaption for the modern audience who’s views around love and marriage have changed since Elizabethan times. Brian Percival ‘Retold’ the original play, first published in 1623 by reinterpreting it into his own understanding of modern society with the focus of women’s roles nowadays. Whilst doing this Percival has maintained many of Shakespeare’s intentions.
The purpose of this essay is to analyse the original drama text with a newer film version, while comparing the
The Elizabethan Era is one of the most fascinating periods in the History of the World. It is named after one of the greatest of the Queens of England - Queen Elizabeth I. It was the era of the very first Theatres in England - William Shakespeare and the globe Theatre and Christopher Marlowe! It also had a very different feel and look to it than we experience nowadays and this is shown in the marriage and wedding customs, recreation, social hierarchy, and how it is a patriarchal society. The Elizabethan worldview is strongly reflected in Shakespeare’s play ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ set in the 17th century in Messina, a port on the island of Sicily,
Much Ado About Nothing many events dealing with gossip, perplexion, and rumors. In the 1993 film version, mainly emphasizes on the confusion that the characters have. In Shakespeare’s day, the “nothing” would have been pronounced as “noting” meaning gossiping.
William Shakespeare’s classic comedy Much Ado About Nothing follows the story of the two famous pairs of young lovers; Claudio and Hero, and Benedick and Beatrice. Although mainly following the first pair throughout the text, the relationship between Benedick and Beatrice is followed throughout the text with less attention from the reader, not noticing love forming between the two. Shakespeare sets his text in Messina, a town located on the island of Sicily in Italy. The play mainly takes place at Leonato’s estate, the Governor of Messina. Kenneth Branagh’s film is based on Shakespeare’s play Much Ado About Nothing. By using facial expressions, tone of voice and body movement, Branagh’s film successfully employs visual comedy that is
Trickery and deceit are central themes in Much Ado About Nothing By William Shakespeare. Throughout the comedy, all deceptions lead to love in a way. Beatrice and Benedick get tricked into falling in love, Claudio was tricked into believing Hero was a lady of evening, and Claudio was tricked into “marrying” Beatrice. This comedy is a whirlwind of betrayal, however it somehow leads to love and romance.
Much Ado about Nothing by William Shakespeare, is a comical story of misunderstandings and funny feuds, but also contains heartfelt love stories, one in which contains an horrible miscalculation that leads to heartbreak and "death." That story is one of Hero, the governors daughter, who falls in love with Count Claudio, a lord from Florence. Claudio undoubtably feels the same and they quickly become engaged to be married the next week. All is well until the evil Don John devises a plan to ruin their upcoming marriage and pulls a stunt to trick Claudio into believing that Hero has been disloyal. At their wedding ceremony the following day, Claudio publicly shames Hero by revealing
In this play, Shakespeare conveys important themes, including deception, honor, and social grace in a comedic manner. An example is when Dogberry accentuates how a character’s social grace is not a representation of their class. He demonstrates this by trying to sound smart, but in reality, he was making a fool of himself. Furthermore, the play also has a more pleasant plot and theme, and is more easy going contrary to Shakespeare’s tragedies. In addition, Much Ado About Nothing gives the reader an improved understanding of Shakespeare’s society in the Elizabethan age. The play emphasizes how important reputation and honor is at that time. Different relationships, for example, father-daughter relations are also mentioned. “If the prince do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer.” (II.i.65). This line mentions how parents expect their daughter to marry a wealthy man, because women couldn’t work. To sum up, these are all examples of Shakespeare and his creative usage of themes and motifs. This makes Much Ado About Nothing a great play for first time Shakespeare
What distinguishes Much Ado About Nothing from other plays is its ability to clearly illustrate the sexual roles of the time period. It is apparent in the female protagonists how they are socially constructed by gender. The social world of Much Ado About Nothing is “precariously founded on a denial of its most pervasive anxieties” and the “repressed fear of all that a woman represents” (Cook). Throughout the play, Shakespeare implies the world of female economy through a pair of dissimilar characters on their respective journeys to love. Whereas Hero is supposedly bought and sold to Claudio as if she were currency, Beatrice
	Much Ado About Nothing is a play that centers around the question and battle between deception and reality. One first notices of the image of deception as we witness the masking and unmasking at the masquerade. In the play, most overhear discussions are deceptions. It is through eavesdropping that we see the true battle between deception and reality as we look at the subplots of Benedick and Beatrice, Hero and Claudio, as well as the comedy of Dogberry and his crew.
Shakespeare’s production of Much Ado About Nothing can be compared within two different time period performances. There are multiple aspects to these productions that are different rather like alike. For example, both productions show the same story through aspects of the men looking for a woman. Also, the women smoked while they were interacting within the characters in both productions. However, both of these products have more differences. The language of the actors is evidently seen through the use of “the” and proper sentence structures between the characters in Act 1 and Act 5 by A.J. Antoon. Whereas in the 2011 remake, the was more semi-structured through using everyday language. Also, the costumes were different. In Antoons version,
Contrary to the title as a play about “nothing”, in the play Much Ado about Nothing Shakespeare does much more by exploring the treatment of women by males in his Elizabethan society. The attitude towards women as a mere commodity of men is evident in the objectifying nature of the actions and words of the men. Shakespeare also explores the values of women being inferior to men which reinforce the phallocentric values within Shakespeare’s Elizabethan society. The value of women being based on mere elements such as beauty and chastity is also explored by Shakespeare in the focus directed upon appearances in the words and actions of males. However, Shakespeare also makes a social comment regarding the treatment of women through Beatrice’s character
In this essay I will be comparing Shakespeare’s original comedy play of ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ to the 2005 BBC Shakespeare Re-told modern film adaptation. With the play created in 1598-1599, the way of living in the times when the two sources were created were very different. The original play, created in Elizabethan England was a time where woman had few rights and freedoms. Women were “owned” by fathers or husbands and were subservient to them. There was an elite aristocracy and people had limited knowledge of the world, what was known was heavily influenced by church and monarchy. The characters in the play portray the people of the time, relating it to the lives of the audience of the play. The film was created in a completely different time and isn’t like the
A Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare is a romantic comedy that has its fair shares of ups and downs. Shakespeare once said "The course of true love never did run smooth." When it comes to this story this quote couldn't be more true. Throughout the story many relationships are tested, created, and terminated. In the story A Much Ado About Nothing, by William Shakespeare there are several opportunities where if a character had acted differently the course of the story could have been changed for the better.
We accept the love we think we deserve.Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare is a book about love and the drama that comes with it. Two characters in the book ,Claudio and Hero, love each other and plan to get married.This plan is crushed by a sad soul named Don John.
I will be considering the role of the villain in Much Ado About Nothing, and will conduct rhetorical analyses that will proceed to view the perspective of the villain and his or her intentions. Much Ado About Nothing written by William Shakespeare intending this play to be a comedy. Although it is hard to comprehend the comedy within the play. The characters within this play are all linked together by having a relationship that looks like a telephone wire game. The characters dilemma develops an emotional state of being towards the characters. These actions are intentions from a specific character. This character is the type of person who has an egoistic charisma that eludes him to be better than anyone, because of his low self-esteem. His villain acts create a major conflict throughout the play. Don John is the name of the villain in Much Ado About Nothing, we will be spotting the dimension of Don John’s acts as well as the motivation that leads this character to interlude his characteristic villain acts towards this plays, and how does the play and the characters deal with Don John.
In this play, Shakespeare pairs of Hero with Claudio and Beatrice with Benedick. Using quotes from the play, discuss why Beatrice would never marry Claudio and why Benedick would not find Hero to be as suitable as a wife for him as Beatrice.