Much Ado About Nothing Essay

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An individual is often identified by his or her appearance, but what happens when an appearance can change so much so that it changes identity? William Shakespeare, above anyone, realized the connection between appearance and identity. As someone who went from being the son of a rural glover to frequenting the courts of Queen Elizabeth, and as someone whose career revolved around convincing others that actors on a stage could becomes kings and queens with a change in costume or shift in language, the world of his plays were the world of Renaissance England: a world in which the individual realized that his or her identity was dependent upon his or her appearance.

In Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare applies the world of Renaissance England to Messina, Italy and with it the ability to defy social conventions as well as alter appearances to allow for the emergence of a new identity.

Elizabethan England was a time and place in which people challenged social conventions to provide the opportunity to assert their emerging individualism and Shakespeare applied this to his plays as well. In Much Ado About Nothing, the Prince’s bastard brother, Don John, proudly defies the traditional conventions of the court and develops an antisocial behavior and identity. He claims “I cannot hide what I am: I must be sad when I have cause and smile at no man’s jests, eat when I have stomach and wait for no man’s leisure, sleep when I am drowsy and tend on no man’s business, laugh when I am merry and claw no man in his humour” (I.

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iii.10-14). Don John refuses to play the political games that his brother the Prince is adept in, and identifies himself as a self-sufficient man who will “wait for no man’s leisure” and “tend on no man’s business.” He further develops his independent identity and individualism through defying conventions by admitting that “though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain” (I.iii.23-25). His admission of being a “plain-dealing villain” simultaneously defies the social standards of morality and asserts his identity as he adds, “in the meantime let me be that I am and seek not to alter me” (I.iii.28-29). Don John knows what he is and is comfortable establishing his identity as a villain. Like Don John, Beatrice is another character who defies convention and asserts her identity and individualism. When discussing with Leonato her vehement opposition to marriage, she exclaims, “No, uncle, I’ll none: Adam’s sons are my brethren; and, truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred” (II.i.53-54). Beatrice not only denies a suggestion of marriage, a denial of convention in itself, she considers men her “brethren,” defying the social conventions of women in society and establishing an independent identity.In addition to asserting oneself through defying conventions, characters in Much Ado About Nothing are able to change their appearances, and thus change their identities in the process. Like the emergence of the individual in Renaissance England, Shakespeare’s Messina also allows people to be more than they appear. Before the return of the soldiers to Messina, a messenger tells Leonato about Claudio who “hath borne himself beyond the promise of his age, doing, in the figure of a lamb, the feats of a lion” (I.i.11-12). Claudio’s ability to exceed expectations and more importantly, exceed the expectations of his appearance, helps to establish the play’s theme of the ability to appear one way and act another. For Hero however, appearance is the cause of the fall and subsequent rise of a new identity. At Claudio and Hero’s wedding, Claudio accuses her of infidelity crying out, “Out on thee, seeming! I will write against it. / You seem to me as Dian in her orb, / As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown. / But you are more intemperate in your blood / Than Venus, or those pampered animals / That rage in savage sensuality” (IV.i.54-59). All of his accusations are based on her “seeming” appearance and it is this new appearance that causes her identity to change from a virtuous and chaste maid to a now “intemperate” “animal.” Taking a cue from this case of mistaken identity, the Friar suggests that Hero willingly change her identity and says, “Let her a while be secretly kept in, / And publish it that she is dead indeed.” (IV.i.202-203). Hero’s identity is transformed from a living person to a dead body solely based on appearance. In true Renaissance fashion, however, a rebirth takes place when she is married a second time, and she herself claims, “Nothing certainer. / One Hero died defiled, but I do live, / And surely as I live, I am a maid” (V.iv.62-64). She admits that her former identity has died and she is now before them, reinvented with a new identity based on appearance.The strength of the ability for appearance to define identity is reinforced by the willingness of others to believe what they see. When Don Pedro offers to help Claudio woo Hero, he states, “I will assume thy part in some disguise, / And tell fair Hero I am Claudio” (I.i.269-270). Don Pedro helps to establish the theme that people can change appearances and in the process, change their identities knowing that others will trust them. The strongest evidence of this inherent trustworthiness in appearance occurs when Benedick is tricked into loving Beatrice based solely on what he sees and hears. The trust Benedick has in appearance is strongly established by his statement that “I should think this a gull, but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it. Knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence” (III.ii.110-112). The fact that Benedick relies on the appearance of Leonato’s “reverence” demonstrates his ability to allow outward appearance to hide Leonato’s true identity and Benedick falls for it, despite his own feeling that it is a trick. While this trustworthiness in appearances allows for the harmless tricking of Benedick, it takes a tragic turn in the tricking of Claudio. After he believes he sees Hero with another man, he asks, “Would you not swear, / All you that see her, that she were a maid, / By these exterior shows? But she is none. / She knows the heat of a luxurious bed. / Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty” (IV.i.36-40). Claudio’s trust in appearances is complete. Not only does he believe what he sees the night before, but now he is able to interpret her blushes as “guiltiness, not modesty.” Claudio is manipulated by the emergence of the individual through appearance as he is unable to see the blushes for what they are.At the end of Much Ado About Nothing, the trick involving the slander of Hero is revealed and Leonato asks, “Which is the villain? let me see his eyes, / That, when I note another man like him / I may avoid him: which of these is he? (V.i.243-245). Of course the irony is that if Leonato can’t tell which man is the villain, then how will he be able to tell when he sees another one? This is the inherent problem in Much Ado About Nothing and, consequently, in Shakespeare’s England. With the ability to change identities through appearance comes the problem of identifying when that change has occurred, which is exactly what Shakespeare was counting on.