MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING SUMMARIES

Act One

The play commences  with an introduction to a few major characters,  Leonato ,the governor of Messina, Beatrice( Leonato's niece) and  Hero ( his daughter) . In the introduction, a messenger comes  to Leonato with news of the war  and discusses what took place. Beatrice hears and asks about Benedict a soldier who was involved in the war. She only asks of him  to insult him due to the fact that they are in a marewar and are sworn enemies. The messenger announces that Don Pedro (the prince of Arragon) will be coming to Messina.

The Prince arrives and has a short discussion with Leonato and then Claudio (another soldier who is highly respected from fighting wars with Don Pedro ) professes his love for Hero to Benedict ,who does not believe in love and swears he will never get married. Benedicts reacts negatively to Claudio .

Don Pedro comes up with a plan to help Claudio woo Hero and decides to execute it. One of the followers of Don Pedro's brother, Don John (the bastard)  overhears their plan and informs Don John , who despises his brother . Don John  decides that he will come up with a plan to stop all that has been planned by his brother to claim glory for himself along with the help of Borachio (his follower) and another friend of his .


Act Two

Beatrice begins to explain why she will never get married. She claims that no man is right or suitable for her. Her uncle, Leonato, declares that he hopes she does find a good husband to marry. Meanwhile, Don Pedro is putting his plan into action. He is at a ball and tries to woo Hero for his dear friend , Claudio.
Don John also executes his plan by  purposely approaching Claudio and claiming him to be Benedict  by telling him that Don Pedro is trying to deceive Claudio and woo Hero for himself. He then leaves with Borachio, his apprentice.

Claudio is then aggrovated wby this and then declares that the  friendship between  him and Don Pedro is over or forgotten. Benedict then enters and tries to convince him that the prince was successful in wooing Hero. Claudio dismisses Benedicts words.Eventually Don Pedro bring Hero and hands her over to Claudio and he then realises that Don Pedro was not deceiving him. His plan failed.
Don Pedro then devises another plan, to make Benedict and Beatrice fall in love, along with the help of Hero , Claudio, Leonato and some other characters.

Benedict is alone and discusses intra-personally , his thoughts on marriage. He  also thinks that there is not anyone that is right for him. As he discusses to himself, Claudio, Don Pedro and Leonato enter and he hides from them because he does not want to hear anything about love. He over heras then saying that Beatrice is madly in love with Benedict but does not show it. He is left in shock and amazement. He then suddenly falls in love with Beatrice and declares to himself to make her his.


Act Three

Beatrice is sent to call Benedict in for dinner. He acts nice to her. As she returns inside, she overhears Hero and Ursula claiming that Benedict is deeeply in love with her. She is also shocked and ponders on what she heard. She then decides to allow him to woo her and gain her praise. She also automatically falls in love with Benedict , in the same way he automatically fell in love with her after overhearing Don Pedro's conversation with Leonato.

As Claudio, Benedict and Don Pedro are together one night, Don Pedro puts his plan into action and claims that Hero is unfaithful and disgraceful. He then shows what he means by this. He show then an image of a woman's figure thrfough a window having knowledge of a man. Claudio is outraged  and disappointed. He then declares that if it is true he will announce it at their wedding the next day.

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

Reasearcher’s have concluded that there is very little that is known about the life of  William Shakespear even though he is known as the best playwright.

            William Shakespeare   was born in the year  1564. William was the third child of John and Mary Shakespeare. He had seven siblings  and five out of the set survived to adulthood. In the  days of Shakespeare’s childhood, children were seen as miniature adults and were trained for the upcoming future to take their place as adults.There is not much evudence of information about his childhood,however, we can assume that this was the case with Shakespeare.

            William Shakespeare had become a teenage father and in those days , whenever a boy gets a girl pregnant he was bound to marry her and Shakespeare took up that initiative to marry th woman he got pregnant. This may have been because he did not want his child to be referred to as a ‘bastard’, which is a child that is look down on in disgrace. Shakespeare shows the trouble it is being a ‘bastard child’  in many of his plays, For example, in the play,’Much Ado About  Nothing’.

             There is no evidence of how Shakespeare supported his children but after he got involved with the theatre, he had become more financially statble and was able to better support his family. The theatre  (the Globe Theatre ) was opened in  1599.  It feature works by Shakespeare and many other playwrights. Shakes peare benefited a lot from the theatre  because he was a shareholder in the company.

            In 1613, during a performance of Henry VIII , a canon went off to mark the entrance of the king, and a stray spark set the thatch roof aflame. In one hour, the theatre was destroyed. Reconstruction of the Globe began immediately  and it was finished by June 1614. Performances continued until 1642, when the Puritans, who found  ‘theatre’ to be  vulgar and intolerable, shut all theatres down. Two years later the Globe was levelled to make way for tenement dwellings.

 Some of William Shakespeare's plays are:

1)    Hamlet

2)    Macbeth

3)    King Lear

4)    Richard  -the third

5)     Much Ado about Nothing

The Elizabethan Theatre

 The Elizabethan theatre or English Renaissance theatre, was derived from medieval theatre traditions. Many of these traditions involved mystery plays - plays that retold stories from the Bible. Chester Mystery plays, for example, were a cycle of forty-eight plays which were performed  throughout the year, covering stories starting from the creation to the Last Judgement. These plays were performed on moveable vehicles (wagons) so that the actors could move from town to town to perform these plays - as seen in the picture below. Morality plays on good and evil also developed as a result of these mystery plays.

           

LITERARY TERMS

FORMS OF PROSE FICTION

novel -a fictitious  story that fills a book

novella- a piece of fiction that is shorter than a novel but usually longer than a story

short story-a piece of fiction  that is shorter and usuallly less complicated in plot tan a novel(usually under 10,000 words )

ELEMENTS OF PROSE FICTION

NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES:

point of view- the way in which a narrative approaches his or her material ( characters,action ,setting,etc.) and the audience

characterization -the way in which a writer creates characters in a narrative so as to attract or repel our sympathy.

setting -a background,scene,surroundings or environment ( e.eg the music for a song )

theme -the subject about which a person speaks,writes or thinks.

plot -the plan of a literary  work ,especially of dramas and novels.

style -the way something is done,made saidor written.

LITERARY DEVICES

imagery -a writer's or speaker's use of words to produce or create pictures in the mind of the reader or hearer

symbol -objects that represent something else

irony -saying the opposite of what you mean in order to emphasize it

satire -using humour or exaggeration to show what is bad or weak about a person or thing

allusion -a passing reference in a work of literature to something outside itself.

STRUCTURAL DEVICES

stream of consciousness -the attempt to convey all the contentsof a character's mind  e.g memory,feelings

interior monologue -an attempt to convey in words , the process of consciousness or thought

flashback -going back in a story to something that happened earlier

foreshadowing -a sign of something that is to come

time frame - a given interval of time especially in relation to a particular event or process

motif -some aspect of literature (a type of character, theme or image ) which recurs frequently

juxtaposition -side by side or close together

TYPES OF FICTION

1. Novel

2. Novella

3. Short story

4. Short-short story

5. Vignette

6. Prose Poem

7. Anti-story

8. Novelette

short- short story - a very brief story,usually 1,500 words or less. Most short short stories are based entirely on a simple plot and end in a surprise,irony or joke.

vignette -a very brief piece of fiction that vividly depicts or describes a person,place or event. Vignettes need not ( and typically do not ) have a climax or much plot also called slice of life.

prose poem -a very brief piece of fiction usually under 500 words