My first impression of Much Ado About Nothing is that it would be a love story. Although it is categorised as a Shakespearean comedy, I found the many “funny” parts of the play were foggy and required you to read the scene over a few times before you understood them. But then again, I had to read the whole scene over again a few times to understand anything. All of the characters in Much Ado About Nothing seemed to develop a personality of their own from the very first scene.
It also helped that I saw the movie version of Much Ado About Nothing before we read the play so I could almost get a picture in my head as to what each character looked like. As the character’s had their own personality, so did the two love relationships in the play. Benedick and Beatrice seemed to hate each other so much from the very start of the play that as the play carried on it almost seemed like the two went full circle in their relationship.
But their relationship might not have changed for the better without help from Claudio, Don Pedro, Leonato, Ursula or Hero. In Claudio’s and Hero’s relationship seemed to be much more conventional in the way they came together. Claudio first saw Hero and instantly fell in love with her, while Hero stood by and took orders from her father, Leonato. Only when Don John devised his deception to break Claudio and Hero apart that I felt the relationship was in trouble, but even then I felt there was hope.
In Act 4, Scene 1 when Claudio denounces his plans to marry Hero, I believed the Friar played the most important role. In fact, I will go as far to say that the Friar played one of the most important roles in the whole play, simply because he made Claudio understand that he loved Hero still, and made Claudio feel shame towards his actions. This led to Claudio’s begging for forgiveness to Leonato and the eventual plan to marry the two once more. And, in all great love stories, the two couples marry in the end, which is only fitting for such a wonderful, uplifting play.