Much Ado About Nothing

First of all, the name of the play speaks to the play as a tragicomedy. The beginning, "Much ado" suggests that there is a lot of drama and drama(in the sense that teenagers use it) is an important characteristic of Tragicomedies. Then all this drama about nothing speaks to the play's more comedic aspect; comedy being another important characteristic of a Tragicomedy. I've never really thought about it like that either.

A Tragicomedy is a play that has aspect of both a tragedy and a comedy. For instance, a play where one brother shames another and instead of killing him to get back at him( the likely ending of this story if it were a tragedy) he would put together a grand plan that would embarrass him if it wouldn't go horribly wrong. And the results of this "plan" would most likely be comedic. In the play, there are events that in a tragedy would end in death or something serious; but this play is a tragicomedy so all of the events that would normally have a tragic ending result in something comic.

The play is serious, but is lightened up with different kinds of comic relief, for example the Act 3 exchange between Verges and Dogberry. Shakespeare was trying to convey a simple message with this play, while also hiding it under different kinds of comedy. Shakespeare was trying to convey that people suck and are always going to try to get back at anyone that wrongs them, and cannot truly let anything go. Children for example, at one of the youngest stages of a person's life they will still go out of their way to get back at anybody who does them wrong. At an early age( like 5 or 6) children have not been taught to get back at everybody who does them wrong, it is just human nature and that is wast Shakespeare is trying to show here. Don John is Shakespeare's embodiment of what people are really like at the core. He is sad and grumpy because he lost a skirmish to his brother. The details of the magnitude of the fight or it's importance have been left out because he is trying to show that regardless of what is is that he lost, he is still going to eel the need to get back at whoever beat him.

Don John was defeated by his brother and his army, among his army was a young lad named Claudio who did quite well for himself during the fight. DJ wanted to get back at Claudio so he devised a plan to ruin his relationship with Hero. This could easily be the premise of a very successful tragedy, but the seriousness of it all is lightened dramatically with scenes that provide comic relief and funny dialogue. In the play, there are many different types of comedy, there are a ton of different kinds of wordplay, i.e. quibbling. There are also some prevalent comedic devices such as Buffoonery and exaggeration. To understand the comedy by reading it though, requires a careful analysis of the writing, but the comedy still holds.

This play is still relevant today because Shakespeare was writing to show how people are, and always will be quick to get back at those who wrong them ever-so-slightly. The play will always be relevant because people will always be this way, it is part of our nature to want to get back at those who wrong us. Even though the premise of so many different ideologies is to forgive those that wrong you and move on, it is very difficult to do because we were not made to do it.