Shakespeare's 'Much Ado About Nothing': Character, Themes, and Literary Devices

"princes jester"

Beatrice at the masked ball

"I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules' labors, which is to bring Signor Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection"

Don Pedro plotting a benign gull

"She is too disdainful"

Gulling of Beatrice

"Love me, it must be requited"

Benedick comically rationalising himself into love

"Rotten orange"

Claudio's allusion to prostitution

Common Stale

Don Pedro joins Claudio in denouncing Hero as a

I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me

Beatrice growing love love through wit, banter, and reluctant recognition, not idealised declarations.

"Redemption"

Dogberry intended to say salvation, one of his malapropisms

"If the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull's horn's"

Benedick refuses to risk his honour by trusting a woman, playing into fears of cuckoldry

"They say I will bear myself proudly".

Benedick cares about other men's perception of him, first he was afraid of cuckoldry now he wants to appeal to men to requite his love with Beatrice

"tipped with gold"

Benedick is reclaiming the cuckold innuendo, disarming the metaphor's power

I can not hide what I am, I must be sad when I have cause

Don John's motivations, he does things for a cause that is ambiguous

"Feats of a lion"

The messenger praising Don Pedro for battle efforts

In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke

Marriage is ridiculed by Benedick to be associated with cuckoldry

Leonato's Hero, your Hero, every man's Hero.

Don John preys on male insecurity about women

"Honest slanders"

The intensity of Hero's berating implies that this gulling is an altruistic mask, where she can stalk Beatrice

Honeysuckle preventing the fruit to enter.

Hero provides a negative commentary on Beatrice's reluctance to marriage but the positive quality of the floral subject strains against negative criticism. She finds her rebellious pride attractive.

"Proof"

Don Pedro's deliberate construction of this weaponises the patriarchal obsession with female chastity.

"Contamination"

Don John dehumanises Hero, reflecting the corrosive impact of false appearances on honour and reputation

Signor Mountanto

Beatrice sees Benedick as more sexually motivated rather than a valiant soldier

Stichomythia

The term for back and forth quick conversation

"Sweetest lady i ever looked on"

Claudio loves Hero for her appearance rather than true characteristics

"When i lived i was your other wife and when you loved, you were my other husband"

Hero talking to Claudio, she is reborn with their emotional connection enhanced

"Beauty is a witch"

Claudio's anger at hero is in his belief that she has duped him

Loves him with an enraged affection

Leonato talking about Beatrics

Give not this rotten orange to your friend

Claudio suggests Hero is outwardly attractive but inwardly corrupt, the benign gull has transformed him. Also weaponises the obsession with female chastity

Benedick shall not be able to resist

Don Pedro plans the benign gull that nudges the couple towards love

"O that I were a man! ... I would eat his heart in the market-place."

Beatrice's violent imagery underlines her desire for agency denied by gender roles.

Death is the fairest cover for her shame

Leonato highlights gender roles, female virtue is tethered entirely to sexual reputation reflecting societal obsession with female chastity.