essay on much ado about nothing

A Summary and Analysis of William Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Much Ado about Nothing is one of Shakespeare’s finest and best-loved comedies. With the battle of wits between Beatrice and Benedick and the plot involving young lovers Claudio and Hero, the play touches upon sexual jealousy, trust, and the importance of separating illusion from reality, among other prominent themes. Before we offer some words of analysis of Much Ado about Nothing , it might be worth briefly recapping the plot of the play.

Much Ado about Nothing : plot summary

At the centre of Much Ado about Nothing are two couples: Beatrice and Benedick and their friends, Hero and Claudio. The play takes place in Messina on the Italian island of Sicily.

Don Pedro has defeated his evil brother Don John in battle, but has allowed him to live and has pardoned him. However, Don John is jealous of his brother and his brother’s friends and followers, and seeks to cause trouble. The play opens with Don Pedro being welcomed to Messina by Leonato, the governor of Sicily.

Claudio, a young friend of Don Pedro, takes a shine to a beautiful young woman, Hero. Don Pedro woos Hero for Claudio, and Claudio and Hero arrange to be married. Don John sets about trying to drive division between the happy couple.

While Claudio and Hero are finding love, Claudio’s friend Benedick and Hero’s friend Beatrice are engaged in a battle of wits, insulting each other in public and trying to give the impression that they cannot stand each other. However, their friends see through this and realise – even if Beatrice and Benedick aren’t fully aware of it themselves – that they are only pretending to hate each other because, deep down, they fancy each other.

At a masked ball, Don Pedro, Claudio, and Hero therefore decide to trick Beatrice and Benedick into falling for each other. Meanwhile, Don John hatches a plan to drive a wedge between Claudio and Hero. He gets his henchman Borachio to woo Hero’s gentlewoman, Margaret, on hero’s balcony, with Margaret made up to look like Hero. Don John then makes sure that Claudio witnesses this, so the young lover is convinced his wife-to-be is unfaithful.

At Claudio and Hero’s wedding, Claudio denounces his bride as unfaithful, and she faints in shock at being (falsely) accused. Leonato tells everyone to pretend that Hero is dead. Benedick, having been gulled by his friends into thinking Beatrice secretly loves him, declares his love for her, and she reciprocates. But she tells him to prove his love by killing Claudio, for what he has done to her friend, Hero.

Meanwhile, Borachio’s big mouth gets him into trouble: the local constable of the night watch, Dogberry (whose speech is marked by comical malapropisms), overhears him boasting about Don John’s scheme and arrests him. Dogberry and his sidekick, Verges, reveal Borachio’s – and, by association, Don John’s – guilt, just after Benedick has challenged Claudio to a duel.

Claudio, realising he unjustly denounced the innocent Hero, agrees, as penance, to marry Leonato’s niece (whom conveniently no one has seen before). When she is brought out for the wedding, she is revealed to be Hero, alive and well. They marry, everyone celebrates, Don John is punished, and Beatrice and Benedick appear to be finally overcoming their verbal chafing and will get together.

Much Ado about Nothing : analysis

Let’s begin with the title of Shakespeare’s comedy: Much Ado about Nothing . It’s well-known that ‘nothing’ was Elizabethan slang for the female genitals, so Shakespeare’s title is, on one level, a bawdy pun: the whole play is a load of fuss over sex.

This is certainly true of many Shakespeare comedies, where lust and love uneasily coexist: Claudio’s attraction to Hero is a result of her beauty, rather than anything deeper, and as soon as he suspects her virginity is non-existent (or has been reduced to ‘nothing’) – a suspicion he is suspiciously quick to adopt – he denounces her vehemently in public at what should have been their wedding.

By contrast, Benedick (his own name can perhaps be translated into another dirty pun, i.e. ‘well-dicked’ or well-endowed?) actively seeks to de- sex or unsex Beatrice as a woman, showing how plot and subplot work together, as Shakespeare uses the second, and secondary, romantic couple to offset but also complement the qualities found in the primary couple of Claudio and Hero.

There’s a paradox at work here, though, for in doing his best to undermine Beatrice’s eligibility as wife material, he is actually, unbeknownst to himself (or perhaps only partly beknownst), highlighting or even elevating her suitability as a mate for himself. Her ability to keep up with his witty putdowns confirms that she is easily a match for him, not only as a verbal sparring partner but as a partner in the broader romantic sense.

People don’t go and see revivals of Much Ado about Nothing for Claudio and Hero, but for Beatrice and Benedick and their flyting-as-flirting.

Indeed, the title Much Ado about Nothing is also thought to hide another pun, on the word ‘noting’, which referred to the sort of banter or repartee which Beatrice and Benedick engage in.

Whilst we’re delving into the wordplay and verbal significance of titles and names, it’s worth mentioning that ‘Benedick’ also summons benediction or blessing, while ‘Beatrice’ means ‘blessed’, showing that the two are etymologically as well as literally made for each other. Although since ‘Beatrice’ is sometimes taken to mean ‘one who makes [somebody] blessed’, we might ask, of the two of them, who is the benefactor and who is the beneficiary?

One final twist on that multifaceted, multi-punning title, Much Ado about Nothing . ‘Noting’ also referred to overhearing and ‘noting’ something down, and obviously this is of significance to Shakespeare’s play in several ways.

First, Don John’s malevolent plot hinges on Claudio being made to overhear or witness ‘Hero’ (really Margaret) flirting with another man; second, Don Pedro, Claudio, and Hero’s (much more benevolent) plot to convince Beatrice and Benedick together turns on the two of them being made to overhear the three friends talking about how the other one secretly loves them: so Benedick overhears his friends talking about how much Beatrice admires him, and vice versa.

Third, Borachio is ‘noted’ or overheard bragging about his part in bringing to fruition Don John’s plot, and Dogberry’s subsequent ‘noting’ of the events and clearing up of the mystery.

Much Ado about Nothing is one of Shakespeare’s more straightforward comedies, in which the plot is simple but the fun is to be had in the skirmishes of wit between the secondary couple, who are far more interesting than the play’s nominal hero (no pun intended) and heroine. It’s hardly surprising that, for many readers and theatregoers, its unofficial alternative title is ‘the Beatrice and Benedick show’.

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A Modern Perspective: Much Ado About Nothing

By Gail Kern Paster

Cuckoldry jokes are in the air in Messina. Its governor, Leonato, snatches one out of it when he jokes feebly about having to ask his wife repeatedly for reassurance as to his daughter’s legitimacy:

PRINCE   I think this is your daughter.

LEONATO   Her mother hath many times told me so. 1

( 1.1.102 –3)

Benedick draws our attention to this trace of an old suspicion: “Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her?” ( 1.1.104 ). But Benedick, we soon learn, is also suspicious of women as the agents of men’s humiliation and defeat. He expresses an almost pathological fear of betrayal in marriage: to be married is to wear the conventional horns of a cuckold, to have one’s own military bugle snatched away, to have it sounded in one’s own face:

That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she

brought me up, I likewise give her most humble

thanks. But that I will have a recheat winded [i.e., a

bugle-call blown] in my forehead or hang my bugle

in an invisible baldrick, all women shall pardon

me. Because I will not do them the wrong to

mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust none.

( 1.1.234 –40)

Benedick’s extraordinary self-portrait of his relations with women yields readily to a psychoanalytic reading. Moving without pause from his conception to his upbringing to his cuckolding, he conflates his relations to mother and to wife, collapses past and future, memories and fears. 2 What seems to unify all these stages of a man’s life, for Benedick, is humiliating dependence on women, beginning with the infant’s dependence on maternal women for life and nurture. But that early dependence, instead of being outgrown, is seen here as forerunner to the later sexual humiliations of the adult male. Furthermore, Benedick’s dismissive mention of his mother as the “woman [who] conceived me” betrays her real importance to the structure of repressed memory. In psychoanalytic narratives of male repression, the mother’s lack of the phallus is a disturbing image for the child—an image of his own fear of castration and of his overmastering by another male. But for Benedick, the returning soldier, this fear of women seems less generic than personal: the cuckold’s horns that he envisions as his own future headdress are specifically those of a defeated soldier who has lost his bugle to another soldier. It is not surprising, then, that Benedick’s anticipation of a farewell to arms here parallels Othello’s lament for the loss of heroic identity through an imagined sexual betrayal by Desdemona:

Farewell the tranquil mind! Farewell content!

Farewell the plumèd troops and the big wars

That makes ambition virtue! O, farewell!

Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump,

The spirit-stirring drum, th’ ear-piercing fife,

The royal banner, and all quality,

Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!

( Othello 3.3.400–6)

For soldiers like Benedick and Othello, marriage threatens loss of a valued form of masculine singleness, a loss of control.

More interesting, perhaps, in a comic action like Much Ado ’s which is organized around the imagining of sexual betrayal, is that the fear of being associated with the cuckold’s horns is not peculiar to men nor is resistance to marriage a symptom of only masculine identity. Though her uncles worry that Beatrice’s sharp tongue makes her “too curst” ( 2.1.20 ) to get a husband, she jokes that she will thereby avoid making her husband wear horns: “I shall lessen God’s sending that way, for it is said ‘God sends a curst cow short horns,’ but to a cow too curst, he sends none” ( 2.1.21 –24). Even the devil, no mere mortal, wears the signs of betrayal; Beatrice imagines having him meet her looking “like an old cuckold with horns on his head” ( 2.1.44 –45). The horn motif continues to sound in the play even after it ostensibly has been silenced by the exposure of Don John’s sexual slander against Hero. Thus Benedick, though converted to love in the person of Beatrice, nonetheless misogynistically urges the play’s remaining eligible bachelor, Don Pedro, to join in the march to the altar in the spirit of accepting a universal, age-old humiliation: “Get thee a wife, get thee a wife. There is no staff more reverend than one tipped with horn” ( 5.4.126 –28). If betrayal is the universal fate of the married, it is no wonder that Beatrice regards marriage as a form of repentance:

 . . . wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a

measure, and a cinquepace. The first suit is hot and

hasty like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the

wedding, mannerly modest as a measure, full of

state and ancientry; and then comes repentance,

and with his bad legs falls into the cinquepace faster

and faster till he sink into his grave.

( 2.1.72 –78) 3

As all these quotations suggest, anxiety about sexual betrayal in marriage seems endemic in Messina, sparing neither the old nor the young, neither male nor female. What is clear in the men’s cuckoldry jokes is their willful silence, for the sake of male friendship and preservation of the status quo, about the male betrayer and a contrasting emphasis on his female partner. It is not the desires of other men that Benedick mistrusts but those of womenkind. It is only when they are among themselves that the Men’s Club of Messina—to borrow Harry Berger’s wonderful appellation—allows Balthasar’s song to register an alternative truth: “Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, / Men were deceivers ever, / One foot in sea and one on shore, / To one thing constant never” ( 2.3.64 –67). 4

Much Ado is not unusual in its reiterated wordplay on horns, since jokes about the wearing of cuckolds’ horns are commonplace throughout the literature of this period. But, in the drama of the period, there is a marked disparity between the frequency of the jokes and the infrequency of wifely infidelity. Many more wives are falsely accused than are, in fact, guilty. This discrepancy between fears of betrayal and actual guilt suggests that we should focus less on the infidelity itself than on the real source of patriarchal anxiety, which was patriarchy’s inevitable dependence on (and inability to verify) the chastity of wives and mothers. For only such chastity secured a social structure based on legitimate inheritance of lands, wealth, property, rank, and name.

In Much Ado , I want to suggest, this patriarchal anxiety gives cuckoldry jokes a particular, local function. They work to resolve a social contradiction in Elizabethan society, a moment of double bind in the cultural history of marriage in which an authoritarian official tradition collided with an emergent ideal. Sixteenth-century English society had not yet dispensed with forms of overt, virulent misogyny inherited from medieval Catholicism which made marriage, especially for men, a less perfect way of life than celibacy. But it could not readily accommodate these inherited forms of misogyny to a post-Reformation celebration of marriage, particularly in its modern form of companionate, consensual unions in which the emotional satisfaction of both partners assumes new importance. Elizabethan society could not dispense with misogyny because the most general, even ancient function of antifeminist discourse is to justify patriarchy’s unequal distribution of power and property, its subordination of women. But virulent suspicion of wifely chastity—the kind of suspicion that destroys lives and marriages in Othello and The Winter’s Tale , for example—must have seemed incompatible with an emergent theory of marriage focused upon the initial consent of both partners and upon their long-term fulfillment of a set of mutual obligations which were in part material, in part emotional. 5 Even Don Pedro, in seeking to promote the marriage of Hero and Claudio, assumes that winning the consent of Hero comes before anything else: “I will break with her and with her father” ( 1.1.304 ), while Beatrice slyly urges her cousin not to say “Father, as it please you” but rather “Father, as it please me” ( 2.1.53 , 55 –56). If women’s feelings matter, then so, it would seem, do feelings about women: medieval misogyny and post-Reformation marriage theory could not comfortably coexist. From the tension between them, the double plots of Shakespeare’s comedy come into being.

Perhaps such a reading of Much Ado seems obvious. Any reader of the play can see how much of its action is devoted to overcoming, through Don Pedro’s theatrical manipulations, the resistance to love expressed by both Beatrice and Benedick. But to follow this reading to its logical conclusion will require the replacement of a character-based interpretation of the play with one which dissolves boundaries between the text as an autonomous work of art and the culture in which it is produced. Such a reading will attend to the widely dispersed misogyny in Elizabethan culture which speaks in and through Benedick, and to the effects of that misogyny as they register in Beatrice’s resistance. Thus, where I depart from traditional critics is in refusing to accept Beatrice and Benedick’s resistance to marriage as finally psychological in significance, even if it is expressed in psychological form in their language and behavior. I do not wish to explain resistance to marriage as idiosyncratic aspects of the personalities of Beatrice and Benedick, even though such resistance is what most sets them apart from their friends and kinfolk. Nor do I wish to interpret their eventual declarations of mutual affection as the manifestation of a hidden attraction that was there all along. I take their love as the creation of Don Pedro, who would “fain have it a match,” he says, to enliven the time between Claudio’s betrothal and nuptials by accomplishing a difficult thing. And presumably he also wishes to make sure that no person in his lordly jurisdiction escapes from the paradoxical cultural requirement to pair off freely .

But the uncomfortable truth is that, in a misogynistic culture, resistance to marriage is rational, not idiosyncratic, because misogyny—defined as the systematic denigration of women—gives men and women well-founded reasons to suspect one another. Beatrice and Benedick are given the function in this play of wittily enacting for our benefit the conventional postures of mutual antagonism so that their eventual union will seem both to ratify the irrational force of desire (no matter how it is brought into being) and to dissolve the larger social tensions exemplified by their mutual mistrust. Because, even though marriage might appear incompatible with individual peace of mind, it remains the basic form of social organization, the central distribution point in Elizabethan society for the social and sexual goods of adult maturity. This paradox about marriage may serve to explain why Don Pedro, rather than take a laissez-faire position with regard to the wooing and resistance to wooing in his midst, intervenes personally as head of the social order in the double matchmakings of Hero to Claudio, Beatrice to Benedick. Indeed, he has a notable, almost quantifying pragmatism with regard to affection, assuaging Claudio’s fear that his “liking might too sudden seem” with a breezy “What need the bridge much broader than the flood? / The fairest grant is the necessity. / Look what will serve is fit” ( 1.1.311 –13).

It is important for my argument to emphasize that the history of misogyny is also the history of romantic love, that cultivation of antifeminist feeling has, since the early twelfth century in Europe, coexisted with, indeed depended upon, a counterbalancing idealization of woman. As Howard Bloch has argued, “Misogyny and courtly love are coconspiring abstractions of the feminine whose function was from the start, and continues to be, the diversion of women from history by the annihilation of the identity of individual women . . . and thus the transformation of woman into an ideal.” 6 That is to say, the idealism of romantic love and the denigration of antifeminist rhetoric are alike in functioning to erase differences between women in order to make women anonymous and invisible to historical action. Such an erasure of differences in women is precisely what occurs in Benedick’s lines quoted above, where the distinct roles of mother and wife are subsumed into the one undifferentiated category, Woman. In the logic of misogyny, if one woman is treacherous, all women are condemned: “Because I will not do them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust none.” The point is not only, as Harry Berger has argued, that “the difference between men and women in this respect . . . is that women are responsible for their sins but men are not.” 7 Even more crucial is to recognize the instability between a misogyny which posits all Women-as-the-Same and an idealization which posits Women-as-Different. 8 In the conversations between Claudio and Benedick—as in the similar conversations between Romeo and Mercutio—this instability in the categorization of women is easy to detect: “Can the world buy such a jewel” as Hero, idealist Claudio asks rhetorically. “Yea,” comes the misogynist’s bawdy reply, “and a case [vagina] to put it into” ( 1.1.177 –78).

Indeed, this instability in the way women are categorized would seem to motivate the different rhetorics by which Benedick and Beatrice are each persuaded to love. While Benedick must be led to believe in Beatrice as Different from all other women, Beatrice must be brought to accept herself as just the Same. Hence Benedick is made to overhear a conversation among the men which describes Beatrice as a compendium of virtues—“an excellent sweet lady,” “out of all suspicion . . . virtuous,” “exceeding wise” ( 2.3.166 –68)—except for her dotage on Benedick. Beatrice, by contrast, learns from Hero and Ursula less about Benedick’s virtues than about her own faults, the chief of which is the nonconformity of resistance: “to be so odd and from all fashions / As Beatrice is cannot be commendable” ( 3.1.76 –77). Both resisters are asked to understand the other’s alleged passion as unwilled and uncontrollable—the real thing, in other words. Beatrice and Benedick experience their separate reactions to this surprising news as free and fortuitous. Benedick, on cue, vows to “be horribly in love with her” ( 2.3.237 ). Beatrice, stung by what she has overheard, thereupon commits herself to a course of action she names self-taming, “taming my wild heart to thy loving hand” ( 3.1.118 ). But we have heard Don Pedro gloat, “The sport will be when they hold one an opinion of another’s dotage, and no such matter” ( 2.3.218 –20), and we thus have reason to think otherwise about the relative freedom of their actions. We witness the conspirators glorying in the emotional transformations which, in the guise of “love gods” ( 2.1.377 ), they claim to have achieved; and we note in their language a deterministic vocabulary of contagion and entrapment. Claudio whispers to the Prince that Benedick has “ta’en th’ infection” ( 2.3.129 ); Hero and Ursula congratulate themselves on having “limed,” or trapped, Beatrice ( 3.1.109 ). Thus in the contrast between Beatrice and Benedick’s subjective experience of free choice in love and the undeniable presence of social manipulation in bringing them to imagine that freedom, we can recognize the powerful, because invisible, workings of ideological conditioning to make people act, so they think, naturally: “the world,” as Benedick grandiosely declares, “must be peopled” ( 2.3.244 –45).

But since early modern English patriarchy required both marriage and misogyny, the social inscription that works so hard to create romantic love works equally hard to destabilize it. Thematic links between the two institutions of marriage and misogyny are emphasized because, in the double plot of Much Ado About Nothing , the actions to make and to break nuptials employ the same kinds of theatrical means. Shakespeare assigns the function of destroyer with evident symmetry to Don Pedro’s brother, Don John the Bastard, whose sense of self-expression in trying to abort the nuptials of Claudio and Hero matches Don Pedro’s in bringing them about. If the moral differences between the two brothers seem too insistently coded, that may be—as Jean Howard has argued—because the play is ambivalent about the social and moral function of theatrical practice. 9 By making the Iago-like Don John a bastard who is so determined to avenge his defeat at the hands of Claudio that he does not scruple to scapegoat Hero in the process, Shakespeare defines one kind of theatrical manipulation as evil, that is, as motivated by the urge to destroy. But is the moral character of Don Pedro’s delight in theatrical practices thereby enhanced? The answer to that question cannot be unproblematical, given that Don Pedro’s surrogate wooing of Hero leads to a series of early misapprehensions—that the Prince woos for himself; that Hero or her father might have preferred to accept the Prince’s suit; that love of women breeds mistrust between male friends because, as Claudio says, “beauty is a witch / Against whose charms faith melteth into blood [i.e., sensual appetite]” ( 2.1.177 –78). Nor does Don Pedro’s devotion to theatrical practice give him any advantage in seeing through his brother’s deception: when the Prince and Claudio witness the scene at Hero’s chamber window in which Margaret allows herself to be courted as Hero in Hero’s clothes, they see and hear only what Don John has prepared them to: “Go but with me tonight, you shall see her chamber window entered, even the night before her wedding day” ( 3.2.105 –7). The potential moral hollowness and material harm of theatrical practices are later emblematized, in this play, when Claudio stands before what we know to be an empty tomb to read an epitaph for Hero.

The play takes pains to construct Claudio as inexperienced and to emphasize the superficiality of a love which arises, he says, at a moment of postcombat mental vacancy:

 . . . now I am returned and that war thoughts

Have left their places vacant, in their rooms

Come thronging soft and delicate desires,

All prompting me how fair young Hero is,

Saying I liked her ere I went to wars.

( 1.1.296 –300)

The prolongation of courtship—which seems the goal of Shakespeare’s other conventional lovers such as Orlando in As You Like It , or even Romeo—holds no attraction for the two-dimensional Claudio, nor does Hero use the courtship period as Rosalind does in As You Like It to investigate the quality of her lover’s desire and imagination. The too-compliant Hero accepts the marriage proposal of a man in a mask and then learns to transfer her consent from the wearer of that mask, Don Pedro, to his young favorite. Claudio does not even plan to spend much time getting acquainted with Hero after their marriage and has to be told that his astonishing plan to accompany Don Pedro home to Aragon would be a great “soil in the new gloss of your marriage” ( 3.2.5 –6). (Indeed, the lovers’ activity of courtship as mutual interrogation is taken over in this play by Beatrice and Benedick. Even though this delight in mutual interrogation is one reason why we are conditioned to expect their eventual union, it is also the case that Beatrice and Benedick use the resulting information to bolster resistance to marriage and to improve their jests at each other’s expense.) Shakespeare uses Claudio’s passivity and inexperience as a wooer to rationalize the young count’s readiness to believe Don John’s slander of Hero and to prepare us eventually to forgive the misogynistic brutality with which he shames her before the assembled wedding guests:

O, what authority and show of truth

Can cunning sin cover itself withal!

Comes not that blood as modest evidence

To witness simple virtue? Would you not swear,

All you that see her, that she were a maid,

By these exterior shows? But she is none.

( 4.1.35 –40)

Claudio’s willed commitment to reading Hero’s blush as “guiltiness, not modesty” ( 42 ) suggests that the real problem linking the two plots of the play is the collapse of the tension between women-as-different and women-as-the-same into one incoherent category of woman-as-different-from-herself. The audience then and the audience now are in a position to understand that widespread cultural suspicion of women, surrogate wooing, and Don John’s theatrical illusionism have combined to interrupt the wedding of Hero and Claudio. The audience is also in a position to appreciate the irony of Benedick and Beatrice relinquishing their resistance to marriage and exchanging protestations of love at the very moment when the grounds for mutual suspicion between the sexes seem to have widened. A subtler irony may reside in the complexities of Benedick’s situation as the lapsed misogynist learns of one danger in love he had not foreseen, one other rational reason to remain resistant. That is, even as he gives up misogyny and trusts Beatrice’s word for Hero’s innocence, he finds a new way in which love may be hazardous to one’s health: when he rashly asks Beatrice to “bid me do anything for thee,” she promptly replies, “Kill Claudio” ( 4.1.302 –3). “Ha! Not for the wide world,” comes his automatic reply.

The recuperative necessities of comic closure that will not allow Hero to die or remain dishonored by an unforgiven Claudio also prevent Benedick from having to follow up on the challenge he flings at Claudio and Don Pedro, from having to act irrevocably upon his decision to sacrifice old loyalties to male companions to new loyalties to his future companion in marriage. But the final entrance of the bridal party, with not just the reborn Hero but all the women wearing masks, suggests that the old cultural categories that produce suspicion and slander remain largely untouched by the theatrical manipulations of the Friar and the rapprochement of Beatrice and Benedick. Even the words of Claudio’s question, “Which is the lady I must seize upon?” ( 5.4.54 ) in their traditional suggestions of coercion and violence suggest the social manipulations that are required to separate men and women from the companionship of their own sex and precipitate them into the terrifying private world of heterosexual union for life. Perhaps this is why Benedick insists on ending the play not with a wedding but with the stately, regulated movements of a communal dance in which the couples move not singly, but together, and no man is yet wearing horns.

• My emphasis. Note here that the original stage directions include the entrance of Leonato’s wife, Innogen, but that editors in this text like others omit her on the plausible ground that she has no words at all, appearing in the text no place but here and in the entrance direction for 2.1. This essay is much indebted to the essays by Carol Cook, Jean E. Howard, and Claire McEachern, which are cited in full in the suggestions for further reading.
• See Carol Cook, “ ‘The Sign and Semblance of Her Honor’: Reading Gender Difference in Much Ado About Nothing ,” PMLA 101 (1986): 187.
• For a brilliant application of this speech, see Harry Berger, Jr., “Against the Sink-a-Pace: Sexual and Family Politics in Much Ado About Nothing ,” Shakespeare Quarterly 33 (1982): 302–3.
• Ibid., p. 308.
• See Ralph A. Houlbrooke, English Family Life, 1576–1716 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), pp. 15–17. For an extended discussion of seventeenth-century discussions of marriage conduct books, see Mary Beth Rose, The Expense of Spirit: Love and Sexuality in English Renaissance Drama (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988), pp. 116–31.
• Howard Bloch, Medieval Misogyny and the Invention of Western Romantic Love (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), pp. 196–97.
• Berger, “Against the Sink-a-Pace,” p. 307.
• On this categorical instability, see Peter Stallybrass, “Patriarchal Territories: The Body Enclosed,” in Rewriting the Renaissance: The Discourses of Sexual Difference in Early Modern Europe , ed. Margaret W. Ferguson, Maureen Quilligan, and Nancy Vickers (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), p. 133.
• Jean E. Howard, “Renaissance antitheatricality and the politics of gender and rank in Much Ado About Nothing ,” in Jean E. Howard and Marion F. O’Connor, eds., Shakespeare Reproduced (London: Methuen, 1987), pp. 172–73.

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Much Ado About Nothing

October 5, 2020

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2. Themes/Motifs

4. Character Analysis

5. Quote Analysis

6. Sample Essay Topics

7. A+ Essay Topic Breakdown

Much Ado About Nothing is usually studied in the Australian curriculum under Area of Study 1 - Text Response. For a detailed guide on Text Response, check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response .

Much Ado About Nothing is one of Shakespeare’s classic comedies, and is in fact the most performed of his plays – even more than Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet . While it was also popular in Shakespeare’s time, its themes are still very contemporary. Much Ado About Nothing is a story of mixed-up love, lies and deceit, themes that are still prevalent in current hit movies like To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before , or 10 Things I Hate About You . The banter between Beatrice and Benedick is amusing and ridiculous, and the ensuing drama between Hero and Claudio is probably not far off the modern drama in the relationships of your friends.

Much Ado About Nothing explores themes of love, the ways that we can be opposed to love and relationships, the position of women and necessity of marriage, and the ways we can deceive each other and ourselves. If you’ve ever felt attracted to someone who really pushed your buttons, felt a spark with someone the first time you saw them, experienced your friends’ relationship drama, said you’d never have a relationship because study is too important, or even maybe tried to play matchmaker for two people, this play is for you! Love is a beautiful and yet frustratingly unavoidable part of life, and Shakespeare shows us the many ways in which people can react to this and manipulate this for their own desires. This play uses comedy to reassure us that mistakes and misunderstandings in love are an innate part of humanity, as we struggle to communicate how we feel towards another person. Further, it is a play about how we stage these relationships to one another and questions whether true love needs an audience at all. As you’ll see, it’s very much a play about appearance and reality, and deception and truth – these are the kinds of questions that humanity will always face when dealing with love.

Themes / Motifs

Marriage and its effects on freedom.

Marriage acts as the primary source of the drama that unfolds in the play, and the main factor that drives its romantic plot forward. Much Ado About Nothing explores the paramount importance the Elizabethan society placed upon the notion of marriage, and the threat this often placed upon the free will of many individuals. This is primarily perceivable in the characters of Benedick, who compares the married man to a tame and lifeless animal, and Beatrice, who disparages the idea of saccharin romance and thus ‘mocks all her wooers out of suit’.

Chastity and Family Honour

‍ Much Ado About Nothing also examines the social concept that a woman should act gracefully and stay ‘chaste' until marriage in order to bring honour to her family. Claudio’s public rejection and public humiliation of Hero during their wedding ceremony acts as the climax of the plot and a direct representation of the societal values in the Elizabethan era. Shakespeare assumes an arguably feminist stance in his implied denouncement of this despotic treatment of women, who were expected to lose all social standing if they happened to lose their virginity before marriage. The extent of this cruelty is emphasised by the harsh, obliterative words of Leonato, as in his belief that Hero is unchaste, he proclaims his own daughter as ‘stained’ and ‘fallen into a pit of ink’, having brought dishonour upon his entire family.

Much of the play’s plot is driven by both accidental and deliberate deception, of which almost every character is a victim. False language in Much Ado About Nothing is so prevalent that it obliterates the truth and forms an alternate kind of society, in which characters assume the very roles chosen for them by the lies spread about them by others. For example, the rumours that Benedick and Beatrice are in love lead to their marriage, and Hero is treated as a whore by her own father due to Claudio’s denunciation of her as ‘every man’s Hero’. Despite this, Shakespeare examines both the positive and detrimental effects of such deceit; just as the duping of Claudio and Don Pedro culminates in Hero’s social demise, her faked death also allows her to reconcile with Claudio and attain her public redemption. 

Perception and Reality

The defining characteristic of Much Ado About Nothing is that nothing of material actually happens in the plot, other than marriage. There are no real fights, deaths, trials, illnesses or sexual encounters - the only perceivable change in the play is the perception of various events and characters, such as whether Hero is a virgin, or whether Claudio and Benedick will fight - hence its name, ‘ Much Ado About Nothing’.

Used to represent the idea of perception in the play, eyes are often utilised by Shakespeare when characters’ perceptions are distorted by the deceptive actions of others. Much like Claudio’s rhetorical question, ‘Are our eyes our own?’, the play questions the extent to which others affect an individual’s way of thought. 

Beards act as a complex emblem of masculinity in Much Ado About Nothing. Benedick’s autonomous bachelorhood is symbolised by his full, rugged beard, whereas Claudio’s clean, shaven face is a token of his ‘softness’ and emotional vulnerability. In tandem with this, Beatrice’s aversion to beards represents her scorn for men in general. It is important to note that the action of shaving one’s beard is a symbol that accompanies the act of getting married - Benedick’s first action as a married man is to shave his beard, and by doing such, allowing himself to be as vulnerable with Beatrice as ‘Lord Lack-beard’ Claudio is with Hero.

The Savage Bull

Don Pedro’s taunting of Benedick that “In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke,” symbolises the act of a free-willed man succumbing to the attractive comfort of marriage. The notion that marriage can be a kind of prison to men is repeatedly alluded to in the play through the symbol of the ‘savage bull’; just as the bull is tamed by humans’ training, the free bachelor is tamed by responsibility when he is married. However, the image of marriage shifts in the play along with a transformed imagery of the bull, as Claudio assures Benedick that his horns will be ‘tipped with gold’ and love through his marriage. This suggests that while it may seem like an intimidating and suffocating prospect, marriage can also provide infinite warmth and comfort to those who embrace it. 

Character Analysis

• Niece of Leonato and cousin of Hero.
• Although kind to her loved ones and described as ‘pleasant-spirited’, she is extremely witty and cynical, particularly towards Benedick, whom she once loved but now engages in constant bickering with.
• Shakespeare’s symbol of early feminism, as she is a character of justice and female autonomy, vowing at the beginning of the play that she will never marry a man in order to keep her freedom.
• A lord, recently returned from fighting in the wars.
• Just like Beatrice, he also vows that he will never marry and stay a liberal bachelor.
• Although he often retorts Beatrice’s snide remarks and sarcastic wit with insulting retort, his observant friends perceive an underlying affection for her beneath his facade of apathy. 
• The main character through which Shakespeare explores the theme of deception and performance; as a natural entertainer, it is difficult for the audience to comprehend whether he is merely pretending to be in love with Beatrice, or genuinely in love with her. 
• The beautiful, gentle and graceful daughter of Leonato.
• The quintessential and ideal woman of the Elizabethan era, as she is obedient to her father and cherished for her perceived pureness and chastity. 
• A young, handsome and widely appraised soldier who has attained great public acclaim through his noble fighting under Don Pedro’s command. 
• Falls in love with Hero immediately upon his return to Messina.
• Although depicted as the ideal male Elizabethan hero, his suspicious and doubtful nature results in his downfall, as he is quick to fall for deliberate lies and wicked rumours, even about those closest to him.
• Sometimes referred to as ‘the Prince’, Don Pedro is an established nobleman from Aragon and longtime friend of Leonato.
• A character with two faces; although socially adept and courteous in his public actions, he is, like Claudio, quick to fall for rumours and takes hasty revenge on those who fail his expectations. Through this characteristic of Don Pedro, Shakespeare condemns the hypocrisy of societal expectations, presenting the idea that propriety can often cover devious intent. 
• Also referred to as ‘the Bastard’, Don John is the illegitimate brother of Don Pedro. 
• Perpetually melancholy and dispirited due to his social standing as an outcast, he devises a treacherous plan to ruin the happy courtship between Hero and Claudio. 
• Despite Shakespeare’s depiction of Don John as the villain of the play, many of his characteristics suggest  rather that he is merely an individual driven to commit evil deeds due to his inherent inferiority to his brother, and constant rejection by a prejudiced society. 

Quote analysis

“He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man; and he that is more than a youth is not for me; and he that is less than a man, I am not for him.”

• This quote by Beatrice represents her aversion to the idea of marriage and her belief that no man will ever be able to satisfy her. 
• As it was widely believed that the beard of a man symbolised his manliness and maturity, this conundrum suggests that Beatrice believes that no man, whether a man without a beard or a boy with one, will be able to win her love or admiration. 

“The savage bull may, but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull’s horns and set them in my forehead, and let me be vilely painted, and in such great letters as they write ‘Here is good horse to hire’ let them signify under my sign ‘Here you may see Benedick, the married man.”

• This quote is Benedick’s mocking, sarcastic reply to Don Pedro’s adage about how all men, even the wildest of them,  eventually settle down to become married. 
• The ‘sensible Benedick’ here refers to a Benedick who is too clever and pragmatic to yield to the fleeting attractions of true love, as he knows that he will be disappointed by it soon enough. His imaginative scene of himself with ‘bull’s horns’ on his head symbolise the Renaissance belief that cuckolds, or men whose wives committed adultery, grew horns on their heads due to their futility. Thus, Benedick here is implying that part of his disinclination towards marriage stems from his fear that his wife will be unfaithful to him. 

“But now I am returned and that war thoughts have left their places vacant, in their rooms come thronging soft and delicate desires, all prompting me how fair young Hero is, saying I liked her ere I went to wars.”

• Claudio here describes his swift transformation from a war hero to a passionate lover of Hero. The change that occurred in Claudio is so rapid that it is more of a passive event that occurred to him, rather than something that he chose of his own volition. 
• As such, Shakespeare uses this quote to emphasise his volatile character and foreshadow the swiftness with which Claudio later disowns his feelings for Hero and humiliates her.

Sample Essay Topics

Quote-based essay prompt.

1. "I am a plain dealing villain." Don John is the only honest character. Discuss

How-Based Essay Prompt

2. How does Shakespeare use music and poetry to convey love and the intricacies of communication?

Metalanguage-Based Essay Prompt

3. Discuss Shakespeare's use of symbols throughout the play and how they relate to the concepts of appearance and reality.

Note: You’ll notice that each essay (or prompt, as we like to use interchangeably), has been labelled a particular type of prompt (theme-based, character-based, etc.). While we won’t go into detail with the types of prompts in this blog, in LSG’s How To Write A Killer Text Response , we explore the five different types of essay prompts. By identifying the type of essay prompt, you’ll immediately understand how you should answer the essay prompt so that you satisfy the VCAA criteria for your SACs and exams. This approach to essays is incredibly valuable as it saves you precious time during assessments, while ensuring you don’t go off topic.

Essay Topic Breakdowns

Character-based essay prompt  .

Much Ado About Nothing is primarily Shakespeare’s strong argument for feminism and female autonomy.

1. Shakespeare in Much Ado About Nothing utilises the character of Beatrice as the quintessential strong female hero, and thus encourages female autonomy. 

• Beatrice’ strong, independent spirit and fierce wit defines her as the most powerful female character in the play. Her desire to remain a ‘maid’, uncommon in the times as every woman was expected to aspire to marriage, is a striking emblem of feminism, as her self-governance and liberated spirit is depicted.
• Beatrice is also perceivably masculine - she even expresses her desire to have been born a man in her patriarchal society, stating, ’I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving.’ As such, Shakespeare advocates that society should accept a more diverse range of women, including those with more masculine characteristics. 

2. In tandem with this, the character of Hero is employed as an instrument through which Shakespeare condemns the harsh societal expectations of women. 

• The public humiliation of Hero as ‘unchaste’, or sexually loose, results in her rejection both from society and her own family, including her previously doting father, Leonato. 
• As such, Hero’s devastating plight reminds the audience that being a woman in the Renaissance meant that one was constantly vulnerable to inferior treatment compared to men, and their harsh judgments - even from male relatives or close ones.

3. Ultimately, the repeatedly negative connotations of marriage expressed by female characters highlights the lack of autonomy women possessed in the Shakespearean era.

• Beatrice’s extreme aversion to marriage, as she ‘cannot endure to hear tell of a husband’, suggests that it was not all women’s choice to marry but rather a heavy societal burden placed over their heads.
• Hero is perceived to have almost no agency or self-determination when choosing a life partner, perceivable by Leonato’s reminder to her, 'Daughter, remember what I told you. If the Prince do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer.’ As Hero expresses that her heart is ‘exceedingly heavy’ on her wedding day, the audience is positioned to question the extent of power that fathers held over their daughter’s fates in the Elizabethan era.

Theme-based essay prompt

In Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare argues that deception always results in negative consequences. 

1. Deception is portrayed as a negative tool in Much Ado About Nothing , as trickery leads to tragic events, as Don John’s lies directly results in Hero’s social demise and the destruction of her relationship with Claudio. 

• Don John’s deceitful words to Claudio before their wedding, “I came hither to tell you, and, circumstances shortened—for[Hero] has been too long a-talking of—the lady is disloyal,” lead to Claudio’s public humiliation of Hero as every man’s Hero’ - an unfaithful woman.
• The catastrophic outcome of this highlights the negative power of deception and the danger of being swayed by mere hearsay, as Hero is not only scorned by all of society, but also disowned by her own father, who wishes death upon himself and his ‘stained’ daughter.

2. Despite this, deception is not always detrimental in Much Ado About Nothing , in which deliberate trickery leads to the resolution of the main romantic conflict between Beatrice and Benedick. 

• The act of deceiving Benedick and Beatrice that the other is in love with them eventually leads to their marriage - the resolution of the main conflict of the play. 
• Although Benedick is firmly against the idea of being contained by marriage in the beginning of the play, he becomes a passionate lover as soon as he hears the false words, “Did you know Beatrice is madly in love with Benedick?”, declaring that he ‘will be horribly in love with her’ thenceforth. 
• Similarly, Beatrice is also positively influenced by deceptive words, as the audience can discern her transformation from a ‘flighty maid’ to a woman full of genuine affection of Benedick - perceivable by the end of the play, in which she delivers the lines, ‘Benedick, love on, I will requite thee, taming my wild heart to thy loving hand,’ as if releasing the very last fragment of her stubborn heart to him. 

3.  In a similar vein, Hero’s staged and thus deceptive death results in her social and familial redemption, as well as the saving of her marriage with Claudio. 

• In order to punish Claudio for his mistakes, Leonato’s household publicly ‘publishes’ that Hero has died. 
• The idea of Hero’s death brings so much guilt to Claudio that he begins to remember all of her benevolent qualities in a fit of misery, delivering the lines, ‘Sweet Hero, now thy image doth appear / In the rare semblance that I loved it first.’ 
• Leonato asks Claudio to marry his niece (Hero in disguise) instead of the ‘dead’ Hero, and as Claudio tearfully agrees, the redemptive masquerade through which Hero and Claudio reconcile symbolises the positive factors of deception. 

Now it's your turn! Give these essay topics a go. If you're you’d like to read completed A+ essays based off the two essay topics above, as well as the ones listed below,  complete with annotations on HOW and WHY the essays achieved A+ so you can emulate this same success, then I would highly recommend checking out LSG's Killer Text Guide: Much Ado About Nothing . In it, we also cover themes, characters, views and values, metalanguage and have 4 other sample A+ essays completely annotated so you can smash your next SAC or exam! Check it out here.

‍ Extra Resources

The Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response

How To Write A Killer Text Response Study Guide

How to embed quotes in your essay like a boss

How to turn your Text Response essays from average to A+

5 Tips for a mic drop worthy essay conclusion

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Now quite sure how to nail your text response essays? Then download our free mini-guide, where we break down the art of writing the perfect text-response essay into three comprehensive steps. Click below to get your own copy today!

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• Learn how to brainstorm ANY essay topic and plan your essay so you answer the topic accurately (no more going off-topic!)
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Measure for Measure is currently studied in VCE English under Area of Study 1 - Text Response. For a detailed guide on Text Response, check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response .

INTRODUCTION ‍

Ahh William Shakespeare. That guy. You’re probably thinking, “Great. More fancy language. Hasn’t he been dead for centuries? Why does he keep popping up in our English curriculum?”

At least, that’s how I reacted.

Shakespeare is actually a huge figure in the history of the English language, and really no high school English curriculum is complete without a mandatory dose of him. In fact, the current VCAA study design demands that one of his texts must be on the text list. What a legend.

Shakespeare doesn’t only influence our world in the classroom. The Bard coined many words and phrases that we use today. We can thank this playwright for “be -all, end-all”, “good riddance”, and my personal favourite, “swagger”.

The Bard’s play “Measure for Measure” was first performed in 1604; over 400 years ago. So why do we still study his works today? In fact, the ideas and themes that are evoked in his plays are universal and timeless; pertinent to his contemporary counterparts, as well as today’s audience. Shakespeare’s plays are like soup (bear with me, this is going somewhere). One could say the playwright is a master chef; he mixes tales of the human condition and experience and asks us to question people and ideas. Everyone, regardless of their time, will gobble up the story.

So, what is this soup- I mean ‘Measure for Measure’ about? The play is known as a “problem play” and/or “tragicomedy”. That’s right, it’s both a tragedy and a comedy. Dire trials and tribulations are intertwined with humorous gags and jokesters. I guess Shakespeare couldn’t choose just one.  

‘Measure for Measure’ is also a problem play. Critic W.W Lawrence defined a problem play as one in which "a perplexing and distressing complication in human life is presented in a spirit of high seriousness ... the theme is handled so as to arouse not merely interest or excitement, or pity or amusement, but to probe the complicated interrelations of character and action, in a situation admitting of different ethical interpretations".

Ok, crazy, but he also said that "the 'problem' is not like one in mathematics, to which there is a single true solution, but is one of conduct, as to which there are no fixed and immutable laws. Often it cannot be reduced to any formula, any one question, since human life is too complex to be so neatly simplified.”

In short, a problem play presents lots of complications and issues that are open to different ethical interpretations. As in “Measure for Measure”, the “problem(s)” is/are not always solved.

So, what actually happens in this play that is problematic? What are our ingredients in this problem soup?

‍ P(L)OT SUMMARY

Get it? Cause soup is cooked in a pot. Sorry.

The Duke of Vienna appoints his deputy, Angelo, as the temporary leader. This Duke then pretends to leave town but instead dresses up as a friar to observe what happens in his absence. Angelo, strict and unwavering in his dedication to following the rules, decides to rid Vienna of all the unlawful sexual activity; including shutting down the brothels. Prostitutes like Mistress Overdone (pun alert) and her pimp Pompey are poised to lose their livelihoods. Laws against this activity exist, but they’ve gotten lax over the years. Angelo, a stickler for the rules, has Claudio arrested because young Claudio has gotten his engaged wife-to-be (Juliet) pregnant before they were officially married. Claudio is to be executed.

The virtuous Isabella, Claudio’s sister, is poised to enter a nunnery. Upon hearing of her brother’s arrest and sentence, she goes to Angelo to beg him for mercy. He hypocritically, in an absolutely dog move, propositions her, saying he’ll pardon her brother if she sleeps with him (with Angelo, not Claudio). She immediately refuses, being the religious and chaste woman that she is. At first Claudio is upset because he wants to live, but then he calms down and accepts death.

Luckily, the Duke (secretly dressed as a friar) helps in their sticky situation. He brews up a plan; Angelo’s former flame Mariana was engaged to him, but he broke off their engagement after she lost her dowry in a shipwreck. The Friar (Duke) plans to have Isabella agree to sleep with Angelo, but then send Mariana in her place. In theory, Angelo would pardon Claudio and be forced to marry Mariana by law.

The old switcheroo goes off without a hitch. But come morning, Angelo refuses to pardon Claudio, fearing he will seek revenge. The Duke, in collaboration with the Provost, send Angelo the head of a dead pirate (Ragozine) who died of natural causes. They claim that it’s Claudio’s head, and Angelo is satisfied, thinking him to be dead. Isabella is also told that her brother is dead and is encouraged by the Friar (Duke) to complain about Angelo to the Duke, who is returning home.  

The Duke makes a grand return to Vienna, saying he will hear any complaints immediately. Isabella tells her story, and the Duke feigns disbelief, despite having orchestrated the plan himself. In an act filled with more twists and turns than a Marvel movie, everything comes out; the Duke reveals he was a friar all along, Angelo is forced to confess, and Claudio is pardoned amongst other things. To top it all off, the Duke proposes to Isabella. Crazy!

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

It’s important to acknowledge what was going on in the world during the writing of a text. This may help give insight into why the author has included (or not included) some aspect of their work.

The Divine Right of Kings

This holy mandate states that a monarch derives his right to rule from the will of God and is not subject to earthly authority. The “king” or monarch is hence practically divine, and questioning his orders is also questioning god; blasphemy.

The Great Chain of Being/Class divides

This chain is a hierarchy of all life forms and matter in the following order:

• Kings & Royalty
• Commoners (Gentry, Merchants, Yeoman, Laborers)
• Non-living things

Hence, alongside The Divine Right of Kings, this ideal gave monarchs huge power over their subjects.

In early 1600s England, there was a defined social hierarchy and class system. Everyone had a place in the hierarchy, and there was little movement between the classes. Within each class, men were considered superior to women.

Shakespeare encourages us to ask a few questions of our supposedly holy leader and his actions. According to the Divine Right of Kings, the Duke is god’s right-hand man, and thus all his decisions are holy and backed by heaven. However, the Duke is pretty shady when he plots his bed-trick plan with Isabella and Mariana. Is this deceptive behavior still holy? Furthermore, is it not sacrilege to pretend to be a holy friar when one is not truly a holy man?

Moreover, when the Duke assigns Angelo as his deputy, would this transform Angelo into a divine ruler too? Could he be divine, considering his cruel rule and despicable request to Isabella?

Women were considered subservient, lower class citizens then men. Alliances were forged between powerful families through arranged marriages of daughters. These girls may have received an education through tutors attending their homes (there were no schools for girls), but their endgame would be marriage, children and maintaining the home. Women and girls of a lower class did not receive any formal education but would have learned how to govern a household and become skilled in all housewifely duties. Impoverished and desperate women (Mistress Overdone) would turn to prostitution to stay alive.

Shakespeare perhaps highlights the struggle of women in his female characters; Isabella, Mistress Overdone, Juliet, and Kate Keepdown. Their futures appear bleak; Isabella is poised to enter a nunnery, Juliet’s husband (her only source of income and protection) is to be executed, while the brothels that facilitate Mistress Overdone and Kate Keepdown’s livelihoods are being closed down by Angelo.

Jacobean Audience

It was a tumultuous time when Shakespeare penned ‘Measure for Measure’ in 1604. A year earlier came the end of the 45 year long Elizabethan era and began the Jacobean era under the rule of King James. Since the late Queen Elizabeth had no direct heirs, King James of Scotland (a relative) took to the throne. Little was known by the English people of this foreign king.

Perhaps, as Shakespeare portrays the ruler in ‘Measure for Measure’ as clever and good-hearted, the Bard sought to appease the king by calming the people and encouraging them to trust in their new monarch.

The playwright characterizes the Duke as loving his people, but not enjoying being before their eyes and in the spotlight; much like King James, a quiet ruler who relished studying privately in his great library.

‍ Playhouses and Brothels

The general public (commoners) paid a penny (could buy you a loaf of bread back in the day) to see Shakespeare’s plays, standing in the “yard”; on the ground, at eye-level of the stage. The rich (gentry) paid 2 pennies for seating in the galleries, often using cushions. The really rich (nobles) could watch the play from a chair set on the side of the stage itself. Shakespeare’s plays were performed at the Globe Theatre. Playhouses in Shakespeare's time were often close to brothels, both in terms of their physical locations in the suburbs and the way they were viewed by some of polite society. Thus, Shakespeare's relatively sympathetic portrayal of sexual deviance in ‘Measure for Measure’ may also constitute a defence of other suburban entertainment—his plays—and a way to humanize lower classes who patronized them.

WRITING ABOUT 'MEASURE FOR MEASURE'

If you’re lucky enough to study this interesting piece, the study design requires you to prepare “sustained analytical interpretations…discussing how features of the text create meaning and using textual evidence to support (your) reasons”. Basically, you’ll be given a topic; this topic could surround themes, characters, etc., and you must write analytically.

While you may choose to structure paragraphs around themes, ideas or characters, make sure to embed some historical context in there; that’ll show the examiner that you’ve done your research and have a thorough and deeper understanding of why Shakespeare put this or that in. Talking about authorial intent in your analytical essay leads to a more in-depth analysis.

“Shakespeare portrays characters that are flawed as a result of pre-destined circumstances. These characters, such as bawd Pompey and prostitute Mistress Overdone, lived in a time when there existed strong class divides, and movement within the social hierarchy was rare. As per the “Great Chain of Being”, a contemporary religious dogma, there was a hierarchy of all living things and matter, from lofty God and his angels down through the ranks of men and finally to animals and non-living things. In some cases, attempting to move up the social ranks was even considered a blasphemous rejection of the fate chosen by God.”

- embedding historical context (The Great Chain of Being) into a paragraph that discusses characters being flawed because of their circumstances

“Shakespeare offers characters such as Isabella and The Duke who strive for self-improvement through understanding and temperance. Perhaps the playwright suggests that perfection is very difficult if not impossible to attain, even for a ruler like the Duke and a pure soul like Isabella. However, he posits that it can be strived for and that perhaps this attempt to become better is what truly matters.”

- talking about authorial intent - what is Shakespeare trying to tell us?

Think of it as an opportunity to make your very own soup! Add some themes, stir in character analysis, sprinkle in some quotes and serve with historical context and authorial intent. Just like with a soup, there’s got be a good balance of all your ingredients; test out different structures during the year to find what works for you. (Just try not to overcook it, like I have done with this soup metaphor). If you need more help, How To Write a Standout Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare Essay is for you!

So, you see, there’s more to Shakespeare and ‘Measure for Measure’ than just fancy old language and iambic pentameter (What’s that? Well...). Keep on reading this blog post, where we’ll delve into themes, characters and symbols/motifs. In the meantime, let’s have a break. Grab a snack, a drink, and enjoy this tasty Shakespeare meme.

...Aaaaand we’re back!

Are you ready for part 2 of the Shakespeare train? Hop on board as we explore themes, characters and symbols/motifs. ‍ ‍

These are the major themes in ‘Measure for Measure’.

As you can see, the themes are interconnected. (Do you like the diagram? Made it myself :)) Why does this matter? Well, if you get an essay topic about Justice, for instance, you can also link it to Sexual and Gender Politics as well as Social Decay/Cohesion.

So, why is any one theme an important theme?

Which moments and characters are these themes related to?

Is there a link to historical context?

What are some key quotes?

What could be Shakespeare’s potential message? (Keep in mind that depending which pieces of evidence you look at, the Bard could be saying something different. In this piece, we’ll only discuss one or two authorial messages. The beauty of Shakespeare is that much is open to interpretation. You can interpret characters and ideas in so many different ways!)

Those are some great questions. Let’s explore some of the biggest themes...

Power and Authority

Power not only dictates the Viennese society, but we see it is a basis for moral corruption (I’m looking at you, Angelo!). The Duke is the leader of Vienna, ordained by God. He hands this power to his deputy Angelo, who misuses it in his request of Isabella. Now consider Isabella - she has power too, but a different kind… Also consider characters who have little to no power - Mistress Overdone, Pompey etc.

This theme could be linked to the Divine Right of Kings, the Great Chain of Being and Women.

• “O, it is excellent to have a giant’s strength, but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant” - Isabella when she pleads to Angelo to not kill her brother (Act 2, Scene 2, Line 130-132)
• “He who the sword of heaven will bear should be as holy as severe” - The Friar (Duke) to himself, not happy with Angelo’s dog move (Act 3, Scene 1, 538-539)
• “When maidens sue, men give like gods” - Lucio to Isabella, encouraging her to convince Angelo not to kill Claudio (Act 2, Scene 1, Line 87-88)
• "Hence we shall see, if power change purpose, what our seemers be.” - The Duke lowkey suggesting that once Angelo gets power, he’ll change into something evil (Act 1, Scene 4, Line 57)
• “Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.” - Escalus is sneakily hating on Angelo. This quote shows that power and authority often involve corruption (Act 2, Scene 1, Line 41)

Perhaps Shakespeare is suggesting that power is a dangerous weapon and that in the wrong hands, it could be deadly.

Morality and Sin

This is an interesting theme. What defines sin? For instance, if Isabella sleeps with Angelo she’s sinning before God. But if she doesn’t, then she’s letting her brother die, which is not good either. Bit of a pickle that one. Some characters to consider include Isabella, Angelo, The Duke, Claudio, Lucio, the Provost…. jeez just about everyone! So many of the characters take part in questionable deeds. Was it immoral for the Duke to pretend to be a holy friar? Is Claudio’s sin of impregnating Juliet really punishable by death if both parties were willing, and no one else has been punished for the same “crime”? Are Pompey and Mistress Overdone being immoral in being in the prostitution business, if it’s the only way to survive?

Deep stuff man. This can be linked back to class divides, women and the contemporary playhouses/brothels.

• “What sin you do to save a brother’s life, nature dispenses with the deed so far that it becomes a virtue” - Claudio begs his sister to sleep with Angelo (immoral, especially since she’s poised to enter a nunnery), saying that it’s for a good cause, and will actually be a virtue/good deed (Act 3, Scene 1, Line 146-148)
• “Might there not be a charity in sin to save this brother’s life?” - Angelo asking Isabella to sleep with him and trying to paint the act as a charitable deed (Act 2, Scene 4, Line 65-66)
• “I am a kind of burr, I shall stick” - Lucio, who represents sin and immorality in Vienna (we’ll talk more about this later in symbols/motifs) (Act 4, Scene 3, Line 182)
• “To bring you thus together ‘tis no sin, sith that the justice of your title to him doth flourish the deceit.” - The Friar (Duke), encouraging Isabella and Mariana to do the dodgy bed-trick and trick Angelo (Act 4, Scene 1, Line 79-81)

Perhaps Shakespeare tries to tell us that there is a fine line between something moral and something sinful. Maybe he’s asking, “who are we to judge?”, since we all do questionable things sometimes. Everyone from the almighty Duke to a lowly prostitute has committed potentially immoral acts. Perhaps audiences are encouraged to be more understanding of others, and their reasons for these deeds.

Mmm, this theme ties in nicely with just about all of the others. How does one define justice? The play explores this idea; does justice mean punishment? Or mercy? How do we balance the two to deliver the right punishment/lack thereof? Characters that dispense justice include The Duke, Angelo (although they have differing ideas of justice) and Isabella. Since Vienna is a religious place, consider the divine justice system (ie. a perfect, flawless system meted out by God) and the earthly one (ie. the flawed, human justice system). Laws exist in an attempt to ensure justice. But does it always work? Consider also the Old and New Testament ways of thinking - the former strict and punitive, while the latter is more measured and merciful (see symbols/motifs below for more info).

This theme can be linked to the Divine Right of Kings, Great Chain of Being, Women, and Jacobean Audience.

• “Justice, justice, justice, justice!” - (Wait, are you sure this quote is about justice?) Isabella pleads for (you guessed it) justice to the Duke (no longer dressed as a friar), thinking Angelo has, in fact, killed her brother (Act 5, Scene 1, Line 26)
• “The very mercy of the law cried out… ‘An Angelo for Claudio, death for death!’ Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure, like doth quit like, and measure still for measure” - The Duke, explaining that it’s only fair that Angelo die for “killing” Claudio. (Act 5, Scene 1, Line 437-441)
• “liberty plucks justice by the nose” - The Duke tells Friar Thomas that the laws have slipped over the years, and the citizens of Vienna are not being punished for immoral deeds (prostitution, sex before marriage etc)

Perhaps Shakespeare says that since we humans are inevitably flawed, that any justice system created by us will too be imperfect. Who are we to decide the fates of our fellow man? Furthermore, the Bard may be encouraging us to be kind when dispensing justice, leaning more to mercy than punishment.

Sexual and Gender Politics

Who run the world? Gir- no it’s a bunch of men. This theme contributes to why ‘Measure for Measure’ is a problem play. The exploration of the female characters in this play are very interesting, and kind of sad. Of 20 named characters, only 5 are women. Together, their lines make up only 18% of the play. Yikes! There is a lot to unpack here. Our female characters are Isabella, Mariana, Mistress Overdone, Juliet, Francisca (a nun who speaks twice) and Kate Keepdown (who we never meet). Their situations: a maiden poised to enter a nunnery, a prostitute, a pregnant girl about to lose her husband, a nun, and another prostitute. Quite gloomy, isn't it? Meanwhile, the men are leaders (The Duke, deputy Angelo, and ancient lord Escalus) and gentlemen (Lucio, Claudio, and Froth). Over the course of the play, our female characters are put into worse situations by men. Their experiences are dictated by men. Consider taking a “feminist perspective” and exploring ‘Measure for Measure’ from a female point of view.

This theme links to the Great Chain of Being, Women and Playhouses/Brothels.

• “see how he goes about to abuse me!” - These are the last words we hear from Mistress Overdone, as she calls out Lucio for betraying her even though she kept secrets for him. All this happens while she’s being carted off to prison in only Act 3! What do you think Shakespeare is saying to us? (Act 3, Scene 1, Line 481)
• “Then was your sin of heavier kind than his” - The Friar (Duke) says to Juliet that she sinned more than Claudio, even though their sin was “mutually committed”. Even though they were both consenting, the woman is blamed more. Consider what would become of Juliet if Claudio was executed. She’d probably end up like Mistress Overdone... (Act 2, Scene 3, Line 31)
• “Who will believe thee, Isabel?” - Angelo says this after Isabella threatens to reveal his disgusting request. Ouch. It really goes to show how untrustworthy women are deemed.  (Act 2, Scene 4, Line 163)
• “Why, you are nothing then: neither maid, widow, nor wife?” - The Duke says this to Mariana. Basically, he says a woman can only be those 3 things. Jeez. (Act 5, Scene 1, Line 196-197)
• “When maidens sue, men give like gods” - Lucio to Isabella, encouraging her to convince Angelo not to kill Claudio. So, perhaps women do have some power. But, it’s due to their sexuality; something evaluated by men. Peachy. (Act 2, Scene 1, Line 87-88)

Perhaps Shakespeare suggests that women are treated unfairly in society. Maybe he posits that women are afforded so few opportunities in a man’s world. The Bard potentially says that such sexual and gender politics do not create a cohesive and just society.

This theme, again, connects to many others. It can link to all groups of people (The wealthy, the poor, women, criminals etc). Most of the mercy is dispensed at the end of the play when the Duke does his grand reveal. Characters who choose to mete out mercy over punishment include The Duke and Isabella. Also consider Angelo, who instead of choosing to spare Claudio, decides to kill him to uphold a law that hasn’t seen anyone punished for the same deed. We might think this is harsh, but it a legal and lawful decision.

Connect this idea with historical context, specifically Jacobean audience and playhouses/brothels.

• “I find an apt remission in myself” - Apt remission = ready forgiveness. The Duke says this after pardoning Angelo (Act 5, Scene 1, Line 539)
• “pray thee take this mercy to provide for better times to come” - The Duke pardons murderer Barnadine, asking him to use it to do better. How lovely!  (Act 5, Scene 1, Line 525-526)
• “let us be keen (shrewd/sharp), and rather cut a little than fall and bruise to death” - Escalus says this to Angelo, who wants to enact all strict laws immediately. The ever-reliable Escalus advises Angelo to be lenient and merciful. (Act 2, Scene 1, Line 6-7)
• “Mercy is not itself that oft looks so, pardon is still the nurse of second woe” - Escalus says this, defending Angelo’s decision to punish Claudio. He suggests that sometimes being merciful can encourage further wrongdoing. (Act 2, Scene 1, Line 282-283”)
• “I show it (pity) most of all when I show justice” - Angelo says to Isabella that he is showing Claudio pity/mercy by punishing him. A firm believer in the law, Angelo thinks he’s doing the right thing and teaching Claudio a lesson by punishing him.  (Act 2, Scene 2, Line 123)

Perhaps Shakespeare encourages us to look at mercy and punishment from different perspectives. Angelo believes he is punishing Claudio for his own good, and cleaning up Vienna of lechery too. Maybe we ought to be merciful in our opinion of the deputy. Nonetheless, the Bard shows that in the case of young Claudio, mercy and forgiveness is the right path to choose. Finally, consider why Shakespeare may have portrayed a merciful leader to his Jacobean audience. Maybe if he were to portray a leader as fair and merciful, the Jacobean audience would trust that their new king (a man similar in character to the Duke) could be kind and merciful too. Earning the favour of the king and writing a killer play? He’s killed two birds with one stone.

Human Frailty & Fallibility

I’ve encountered many essay topics about how humans are flawed and imperfect. It’s a pretty big theme in many texts, not just in our friend William Shakespeare’s. Human fallibility is to blame for a lot of the going-ons in ‘Measure for Measure’. Angelo takes the law too seriously, he gets heart eyes for Isabella and kills Claudio even though he thinks he’s slept with Isabella. Why? He wants to save his own ass, fearing Claudio will seek vengeance. The Duke is flawed too. He’s a leader, but he just avoids his problems, leaving Angelo in charge to deal with them. Then he plans to swoop in and look like a hero. Kinda dodgy. Consider Claudio and Juliet too. They, like Angelo, succumbed to lust and slept together before they were officially married. (Sigh, humans just can’t get it right.) It’s also worth thinking about the “low-lives” and poorer characters. Are the poor frail in a different way? For example, Mistress Overdone keeps Lucio’s secrets for him. In that way she is virtuous. However, she sells her body to survive. Perhaps she is not prone to desire like Angelo, but serves another desire - a desire to survive?

In terms of historical context, consider the Divine Right of Kings, the Great Chain of Being and Playhouses/Brothels.

• “They say best men are moulded out of faults, and for the most become much more the better for being a little bad” - Mariana pleads to Isabella to support her in begging the Duke to pardon (her new husband) Angelo. She is optimistic for man, believing our bad deeds can lead to self-improvement. (Act 5, Scene 5, Line 473-475)
• “Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once” - Isabella pleads to Angelo to pardon Claudio. She states that all souls were flawed before Christ offered redemption. (Act 2, Scene 2, Line 93)
• “I speak not as desiring more, but rather wishing a more strict restraint” - Isabella is speaking to a nun as she is poised to enter the ranks of the nunnery. We usually think of a nun as living a very strict life, but Isabella wants it even stricter! Here we see her flaw is that her thinking is too singular and blinkered. (Act 1, Scene 5, Line 3-4)
• “Lord Angelo is precise, stands at guard with envy, scarce confesses that his blood flows, or that his appetite is more to bread than stone.” - The Duke talks about how unhuman Angelo is. The deputy follows rules very closely, almost to the point where he’s like a machine. His nature is too strict.  (Act 1, Scene 5, Line 53-56)
• “I love the people, but do not like to stage me to their eyes” - The Duke says this to Angelo and Escalus as he hands over power to his deputy. Even the Duke is not perfect, in that he does not like being before crowds of his people (Act 1, Scene 2, Line 72-73)

Perhaps Shakespeare suggests that no one is truly perfect, not even a leader supposedly ordained by God, a law-abiding deputy, or a maiden who is poised to enter a nunnery. Yet while Angelo is overcome by his lust and emotion, the Duke and Isabella attempt to better themselves by showing mercy and temperance. Maybe Shakespeare suggests trying to improve one’s flawed self is most important.

God, Religion and Spirituality

Phew, we’re at our last theme. So, society in Vienna is very much religious. Their beliefs dictate actions and laws within the city. Some very religious characters include Isabella and Angelo. However, our novice nun, who is obsessed with virtue and chastity, agrees to and takes part in the bed-trick, a deception that is not particularly Christian. Our lusty deputy also succumbs, hellishly propositioning a maiden to sleep with him in exchange for her brother’s life. Even The Duke, supposedly semi-divine, makes some dubious choices. He spends most of the play posed as a holy man, even though he is not. He plans the bed-trick to deceive Angelo and lets poor Isabella think her poor brother is dead, instead of saving her so much pain. Furthermore, the title of the tale, ‘Measure for Measure’, comes from the Gospel of Matthew. (See symbols/motifs for more deets). The question of how much we should let religion dictate us is another reason this piece is a problem play.

The theme of God and Religion can link to historical context such as the Divine Right of Kings.

• “more than our brother is our chastity” - (Act 3, Scene 1, Line 194) and “Better it were a brother died at once, than that a sister by redeeming him should die forever” - (Act 2, Scene 4, Line 111-113) show that Isabella values her chastity and virtue over her brother!! Damn girl!
• “Ay, but to die, and go we know not where, to lie in cold obstruction and to rot” - Claudio tells Isabella that he fears the uncertainty of death. Perhaps his belief in a heaven has left him in the wake of his impending death? (Act 3, Scene 1, Line 129-130)
• “Let’s write good angel on the devil’s horns - ‘tis not the devil's crest” - Angelo is talking to himself about his lust for Isabella. It’s an appearance vs reality (ooh another theme!) kind of idea, where you can try to pretend something is something else (ie. Angelo doesn't lust after Isabella), but it doesn't change the thing (ie. he’s still keen). The deputy is comparing his emotions to these religious extremes. (Act 2, Scene 4, Line 16-17)

Perhaps Shakespeare criticises religious extremism in his portrayal of characters like Isabella and Angelo. Or maybe he just wants us to remain open-minded about ideas and our spirituality.

Yikes, there are so many themes in this play! Let’s move it along, and talk a little bit about characters.

Each character can be viewed in different lights, even more so than themes can be. We’re going to discuss characters very briefly because it’s up to you how you want to read them.

Here are the characters, in order of how much they speak in the play. To keep things short, let’s pretend these are all tinder bios. Who would you swipe right on? (Hint: not Lucio)

• super chill (the benevolent ruler of Vienna who’s let the laws slip a little)
• loves dressing up (actually spends most of the play disguised as a friar)
• clever/cunning (secretly counteracts the injustices decreed by Angelo)
• strong morals (would rather her brother die than she lives in shame)
• can get wild (conspires with the Duke to complete the bed-trick)
• holy gal (poised to enter a nunnery)
• a gentleman (well, his title is. He’s rude about the Duke and abandoned a prostitute that he got pregnant, so maybe he’s not that kind of gentleman)
• loves attention (legit! He’s a minor character but he has the third most lines of them all! Lucio loves to stir the pot!)
• loves some symbolism (Lucio represents all the bad stuff in Vienna…..see symbols/motifs)
• plays by the rules (a little too much)
• hypocrite (Sentences Claudio to death for sex before marriage, while asking the same thing of Isabella…. wow we’ve found our antagonist)
• Deep (Angelo is a bit of a complex character. He seems aware of his misdeeds and struggles to deal with these desires. It’s hard not to pity him at times)
• reliable (consistently counsels Angelo against acting too harshly)
• virtuous (he’s merciful, lets Pompey go with a warning in Act 2 Scene 1)
• loyal (trusts in the Duke)
• hard worker (he’s a prison ward)
• virtuous (does what’s right by him, disobeying Angelo’s orders to behead Claudio)
• magician (not really, but he makes Angelo believe that pirate Ragozine’s head is Claudio’s)
• clever (philosophically debates whether prostitution is worse than murder)
• funny (his character is the clown, and he’s got some sassy comebacks)
• poor (Pompey is a bawd employed by Mistress Overdone. Not the best dating bio)
• down for a good time ;) (impregnates Juliet before they are officially married)
• cool family (he’s Isabella’s brother)
• good hearted (initially is horrified at Angelo’s request of Isabella, saying she shouldn’t do it. Unfortunately, his fear of death get’s to him. After he’s calmed down, he’s accepting of death)
• a man in uniform (a policeman)
• a little dumb (he speaks a lot of malapropisms - hilariously using similar but incorrect words)
• not like Pompey (Pompey is a clever poor man, while Elbow is a policeman who’s a little bit all over the place)
• dedicated (still in love with Angelo even though he called off their engagement because her dowry was lost)
• a willing accomplice (participates in the bed-trick)

Mistress Overdone

• poor (she’s a prostitute, who fears for her livelihood when Angelo announces he’s destroying all the brothels)
• good hearted (kept Lucio’s secret. What secret? Read on…)
• works for the Duke (as an executioner…. there’s no way to make that sound nice)
• doesn't have a great name (c’mon it’s true)
• also likes to have a good time ;) (pregnant before official marriage)
• dependent (if Claudio dies she will probably end up as a prostitute to survive)
• can sing (Mariana asks him to sing a sad song about how she lost her beloved Angelo)
• holy gal (she is a nun)

Kate Keepdown (we never actually meet this character)

• a colleague of Mistress Overdone (a prostitute)
• single mum (Lucio got her pregnant and then ran away. He thinks marrying a prostitute is akin to whipping and hanging)

Ragozine (we never actually meet this character)

• dies (legit that’s all he does)

SYMBOLS & MOTIFS

These are people, objects, words etc that represent a theme or idea. For instance, the fact that I’ve used a bad soup metaphor AND a tinder reference means I need to go outside more. But let’s move on…

The title, “Measure for Measure” draws from the gospel of Matthew. The idea of heavenly justice vs earthly justice is prominent throughout the text. Moreover, it’s worth exploring the Old Testament ways of “an eye for an eye” and “measure for measure” in comparison to the New Testament teachings which lean towards forgiveness and mercy. Now, where do the Duke’s actions fit in? Is he harsh and equalising? Is he just and sympathetic?  

New Testament vs. Old Testament

When the Duke sentences Angelo to death, he makes a fancy speech which includes the play’s title.

“‘An Angelo for Claudio, death for death!

Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure.

Like doth quit like, and measure still for measure.”

Act 5, Scene 1, Line 439-441

This mimics the Old Testament views, which famously states “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” (Exodus 21:24). These ideals teach that the person who committed a misdeed shall have the same misdeed done unto them. (For example, if you don’t like my new Facebook profile picture, I’m not liking yours…..but way more severe.)

In comparison, the New Testament states that we “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” (Luke 6:36-37)

So, when sentencing Angelo the Duke employs the words of the Old Testament. However, he doesn’t go through with Angelo’s execution, instead showing the mercy encouraged by the New Testament. He’s not really following either way. Perhaps he’s instead choosing a middle road; one of temperance and justice.

Wait, who? We haven’t mentioned the “gentleman” Lucio much in the plot and in this blog post. That’s because he doesn’t really do that much other than buzz around and annoy everyone. Maybe that’s why his name rhymes with mosquito….

Regardless, we do see enough of Lucio’s character to learn that he’s not a very nice person. He treats Mistress Overdone and Pompey poorly, makes visits to the brothel, doesn’t take responsibility for his actions (getting Kate Keepdown pregnant) and bad-mouths the Duke. So yeah, we don’t like Lucio, what’s the big deal? Well, in Act 4, Scene 4 Line 182, Lucio says something very intriguing.

“I am a kind of burr, I shall stick.”

Burr - those little brown prickly things that get stuck to you.

We can think of Lucio as representing all the sins and misdeeds in Vienna - lechery, immorality, lack of justice, selfishness etc. Hence, Lucio is saying that these shortcomings and flaws will always be present to people and in Vienna, sticking to the city like a nasty burr. Damn, that’s deep.

Prose/Verse

The metre of the verse (ie. the classic Shakespeare writing) in ‘‘Measure for Measure”  is iambic pentameter. This means that each line is divided into 5 feet. Within each foot, there is one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one.

I’ll TELL him YET of ANgelO’S reQUEST, And FIT his MIND to DEATH, for HIS soul’s REST. (Act 2, Scene 4, Line 195-196)

Verse does not have to rhyme, as the above lines do. Shakespeare often employs a rhyming couplet to close a scene and add some drama.

Verse is usually reserved for the higher class citizens, with those who are less fortunate speaking in prose.

Prose is language in its ordinary form, with no metre.

Certain characters, such as Lucio, switch between verse and prose depending on who they are speaking to. This could allude to Lucio’s duplicity, or perhaps a deep understanding of class divides in Vienna.

Names: Escalus and Angelo

Escalus is the ever reasonable and loyal lord and close confidant of the Duke. His name gives connotations of scales and balance - characteristic of the rational man.

Angelo’s name has connotations of “angel”. If we judge him only by his name, he should be a pure and heavenly being. Bah! That’s so fake! We can see that appearance is very different from reality. Isabella notices this too, stating that “this outward-sainted deputy...is yet a devil” (Act 3, Scene 1, Line 95-98).

Angelo’s Words/Actions

There is so much to unpack about this douchebag. Let us briefly consider 2 ideas. When he propositions Isabella to sleep with him, he requests that she “lay down the treasures of (her) body” (Act 2, Scene 4, Line 100).

Firstly, that’s weird. Perhaps Angelo can be seen as someone who is obsessed with the physical - Isabella’s body and treasure. Maybe this obsession leads to his immorality and poor leadership.

Secondly, Angelo struggles to directly say, “hey, let’s sleep together”. He weaves his way around the request, propositioning Isabella so indirectly that at first, she does not even seem to understand his request! However, once she threatens to tell everyone about his vile demand, he speaks bluntly; “Who will believe thee, Isabel?” (Act 2, Scene 4, Line 163). Perhaps this shows Angelo is self-aware that he’s being an ass. Or maybe this scene is yet more evidence of a patriarchal society, with the men knowing very well the power they hold.

We never actually meet this fellow. Ragozine is a pirate who dies in jail while “Measure for Measure” unfolds. His head is used in place of Claudio’s to convince Angelo of the former’s execution. Fascinatingly, Ragozine is the only person who dies in the entire play. ALSO, he dies of natural causes. Interesting. It feels like the play is full of death, grief and many heads on the chopping block. But curiously, there is only one death, of a minor character, of natural causes. Perhaps this says something about fate and justice or offers some commentary on life and hope.

Elbow vs. Pompey

Elbow is a silly policeman who speaks in malapropisms (using a similar but incorrect word for humorous effect). Pompey is a clever pimp who seems to have a deep understanding of justice and the Viennese people. The comparison of these characters, fortunate and dumb to unfortunate and clever, perhaps serves to show that the law is not always apt and that sometimes those who break the law are more clever than it.

Mistress Overdone (or lack thereof)

Mistress Overdone is a pitiable prostitute. She worries for her survival when Angelo begins pulling down the brothels, and she keeps Lucio’s bastard child a secret, only for him to throw her under the bus to save his own skin. The last we see of Mistress Overdone is her getting carted off to prison, crying “See how he goes about to abuse me!” (Act 3, Scene 1, Line 481) Yes, the last we witness of one of five speaking female characters is of her imminent incarceration. Furthermore, this happens in Act 3 of 5, around halfway through the play! The audience never hears from Mistress Overdone again, and her future is left uncertain. Even Barnadine, a convicted murderer, is given freedom and a happy ending.

Consider writing a few sentences of your essay from a feminist’s perspective. Think about the events of the play from the female characters’ points of view. What is Shakespeare saying by portraying Mistress Overdone (and other women) in such a way? Perhaps he is pointing out the injustices of the patriarchal system, or how uncertain a woman’s life was in his contemporary time.

“Measure for Measure” truly is an incredible text. This blog post is by no means an exhaustive list of all its quirks and complexities. This play’s relevance has survived centuries, and I believe it will continue to be pertinent to audiences well into the future. You are very lucky to be studying a text with such universal themes and ideas that you can carry with you even after high school.

Whether you’re studying english, literature or even language it’s hard to avoid Shakespeare. So, we’re going to take a broad look at: Shakespeare’s historical context, his language, and of course, what this means for interpreting his plays. Since Shakespeare has so many plays chances are your text will be excluded. Instead I’m going to use Othello as a case study.

Before you start reading, LSG's Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response is a must-read for anybody studying VCE English.

Othello follows the Moorish general Othello and his relationship with his wife, Desdemona. The antagonist Iago is jealous that Cassio was made Lieutenant instead of him, and seeks vengeance on Othello. Iago attempts to destroy Othello’s reputation, and uses the rich but foolish Roderigo to fund his revenge plot. Through careful manipulation of his Wife Emilia, Roderigo, Cassio, and Othello, Iago convinces Othello that Desdemona is unfaithful, sending him into an obsessive jealousy. When Emilia steals Desdemona’s handkerchief, a token of Othello’s love, and Desdemona cannot produce it, Othello believes he has all the information necessary to condemn Desdemona. He smothers her to death, before Emilia reveals Iago’s involvement. Othello, struck by regret, stabs himself, declaring that he “loved not wisely but too well”

So who is this Shakespeare guy? And more importantly, what kind of a world did he live in?

Shakespeare was born in England in 1564, in the middle of the Renaissance Period. This period of “rebirth” was categorised by the increasing reliance on ancient classical authors for information about the world. This is why Shakespeare plots are famously reinterpretations of Ancient histories and Roman plays. Changes in education resulted in the Elizabethan moral and social customs being questioned. This included the Divine Right of Kings, and notions of gender and identity.

Religion is also significant in this period, and the Protestant Reformation is a subject often alluded to by Shakespeare. It is necessary to contextualise Shakespeare within the Renaissance period, because as you will see, themes, words, and references that make very little sense to us were common knowledge in Shakespeare’s time, and understanding them boosts our appreciation of his work.

The context and intent of the author are important considerations when studying VCE English or Literature. For more on this, read Context and Authorial Intention in VCE English .

The Language

Now that we understand when Shakespeare was writing, let’s look at how.

Starting as broadly as possible, Shakespeare’s difficult-to-read language is actually Early-Modern English, and so many words Shakespeare used are either lost or unused in modern English. Any good copy of Shakespeare will have definitions of these words in the margin or opposite page.

Moving in closer, we have the two types of plays, Tragedy and Comedy.

Comedy is tonally more light-hearted, and has an apparently happy-ending. These are Twelfth Night , Much Ado About Nothing, or As You Like It among others. Despite being made to entertain, they are rarely unsophisticated, and the genre may mask something more sinister. For example, the character of Malvolio in Twelfth Night is entertaining and presented as self-obsessed, but could be used as an example of Shakespeare critiquing masculinity in Elizabethan society, as Malvolio feels entitled to Olivia’s affections.

Tragedies cannot be defined by their tone, however. They are defined by a tragic hero, who has a fatal flaw or Hamartia that results in their downfall. This may be Othello’s Jealousy, Macbeth’s ambition, or Brutus’ naivety in Julius Caesar . These traits all cause the tragic heroes’ demise, as their hamartia leads them to make bad decisions or fail to address the real evil. Tragedies will usually end in the unnecessary loss of lives and an unhappy ending for all involved. Most of Shakespeare’s plays fit into tragedy, including most of those based on historical figures. An analysis considering the conventions of Tragedy--like hamartia and tragic heroes--is a great way to stand out when discussing Shakespeare, and so when interpreting a tragedy you should consider what about it is tragic. For example, is Othello a tragedy because Iago is able to manipulate Othello, or is Othello’s jealousy and mistrust ever-present? Either of these options reveals Othello to be a tragedy, however they both say different things about the characters and plot. If Iago manipulates Othello, the tragedy is because a fundamental good person is corrupted. However if Othello was always mistrusting, the play becomes tragic as the audience must watch an unloving marriage slowly dissolve.

Next, we have the two ways Shakespeare formats his dialogue. Students will often focus on what the characters say without considering how it is said. Knowing the difference between Verse and Prose and how they are used is an easy way to stand out in an essay.

Verse is essentially poetry, where one line follows another. It can rhyme, but often doesn’t. What Shakespeare verse will ALWAYS do, however, is follow the Iambic Pentameter. This is a line of poetry with 10 syllables where every second syllable is stressed. This creates a kind of bounce or flow like a heartbeat. The easiest way to recognise this is to count the syllables in each line: thus / do / i / ev / er / make / my / fool / my / purse. Pay attention to when it is not followed, or when characters are interrupted during the pentameter. When the pentameter is interrupted by another character, look at who is interrupting it. It is likely to reveal a power dynamic between the two characters. Alternatively, a character finishing the pentameter, literally finishing their sentence, could be a symbol of love or affection between them. Using linguistic devices like the iambic pentameter as evidence shows an understanding of the text beyond the words spoken

The alternative format is prose . It’s used quite sparingly so look out for it. Is the way we speak normally in conversation, or how a normal novel is written. You can tell a character is speaking in prose as it’s usually just a big chunk of text. Shakespeare’s prose can reveal different things, so it depends on the context and the character using it. In act 1 scene 3 of Othello, Iago speaks to Roderigo in prose and then transitions to verse once Roderigo leaves. This displays Iago’s ability to code-switch and manipulate those around him with words. Prose is considered more simplistic, so in order to control Roderigo, who is presented as quite dumb, Iago relies on simple language, bringing himself to Roderigo’s level. This is directly contrasted with Iago’s use of the complex verse form, which he uses at all other times.

Interpreting Shakespeare

We’ve now covered Shakespeare’s historical context, his play styles, and his dialogue, but what should we look for when reading Shakespeare that allows us to use this information in a text response or close passage analysis. I’ve already given some examples of how Shakespeare’s language is relevant to his themes, but I’m going to give a rough guide of what themes are common in Shakespeare’s plays, and how they are shown in the language.

Fate versus free-will

This is a theme that can lead to a long discussion and gives you the opportunity to express your own opinion. Are the characters acting with free-will, or is some other force impacting their fate? This isn’t really in Othello, so let’s look quickly at Macbeth; if we consider fate versus free-will with the characteristics of a tragedy in mind, then the tragic hero must act freely even though his ‘fatal flaw’ will lead to his demise. However, the inclusion of the witches in Macbeth subverts the tragic structure and implies Macbeth is being toyed with. Even though Macbeth believes he is in control his fate is met, so is it a coincidence that his decisions fulfill his fate, or was the Witches’ prophecy real?

Appearance versus reality

The different uses of verse and prose are a good way to show when characters are genuine or performing for others. I have already mentioned how Iago ‘code-switches’ by using prose to speak to Roderigo, appearing simple and ‘laid-back,’ but his revelatory soliloquy in verse displays his true nature, both in the content of the speech, and the way it is presented.

Order and disorder

In Othello, disorder could be represented by Iago, destabilising the lives of those around him through his use of rhetoric and manipulation. Order is then returned when Iago is revealed and Othello takes his life, recognising himself as tragically misused. Analysing the theme of order and disorder would support the interpretation that Othello is a good man controlled and abused by disorder and manipulation.

So, hopefully this very brief introduction helps you get into Shakespeare! Even if I didn’t cover your text, the use of tragic heroes, prose, verse, and iambic pentameter are things evident in all Shakespeare plays, so you just have to make it relevant to your text. And remember that in order to read Shakespeare, one must first read Shakespeare. It may take several readings or viewings to grasp what is happening in the play, only after that can you start to analyse in the way I have today.

Finding out that your school has selected to study a Shakespeare play as your section A text can be a pretty daunting prospect. If I’m honest, I wasn’t all too thrilled upon discovering this either...it seemed as though I now not only had to worry about analysing my text, but also understanding what Shakespeare was saying through all of his old-fashioned words. 

However, let’s not fret - in this post, I’ll share with you some Measure for Measure specific advice and tactics, alongside excerpts of an essay of mine as a reference. 

Before you start reading, How To Approach Shakespeare: A Guide To Studying Shakespeare is a must read for any student studying Shakespeare.

Historical Context 

Having a basic understanding of the historical context of the play is an integral part of developing your understanding of Measure for Measure (and is explored further in Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare ). For example, for prompts that open with “What does Shakespeare suggest about…?” or “How does Measure for Measure reflect Shakespeare’s ideas about…?” it can be really helpful to understand Shakespeare’s own position in society and how that influenced his writing. 

There’s no need to memorise certain parts of Shakespeare’s history - as that would serve no purpose - just try to gauge an understanding of what life was like in his time. Through understanding Shakespeare’s position in society, we are able to infer his stances on various characters/ideologies in the play. 

• Measure for Measure is often regarded as an anti-Puritan satire. Although Shakespeare’s religion has been a subject of much debate and research, with many theories about his faith being brought forward, many believe that he was a secret Catholic. He is believed to be a ‘ secret’ Catholic, as he lived during the rise of the Puritans - those who wished to reform the Church of England and create more of a focus on Protestant teachings, as opposed to Catholic teachings. It was often difficult for Catholics to practice their faith at this time. 
• Angelo and Isabella - particularly Angelo, are believed to embody puritanism, as shown through their excessive piety. By revealing Angelo to be “yet a devil,” though “angel on the outward side,” Shakespeare critiques Puritans, perhaps branding them as hypocritical or even unhuman; those “not born of man and woman.” Thus, we can assume that Shakespeare would take a similar stance to most of us - that Angelo wasn’t the greatest guy and that his excessive, unnatural and puritanical nature was more of a flaw than a virtue. 

Tips for Moving Past the Generic Examples/Evidence Found in the Play 

It’s important to try and stand out with your examples in your body paragraphs. If you’re writing the same, simple ideas as everyone else, it will be hard for VCAA assessors to reward you for that. Your ideas are the most important part of your essay because they show how well you’ve understood and analysed the text - which is what they are asking from you, it’s called an ‘analytical interpretation of a text,’ not ‘how many big words can you write in this essay.’ You can stand out in Measure for Measure by: 

1. Taking Note of Stage Directions and Structure of Speech

Many students tend to simply focus on the dialogue in the play, but stage directions can tell you so much about what Shakespeare was really trying to illustrate in his characters. 

• For example, in his monologue, I would often reference how Angelo is alone on stage, appearing at his most uninhibited, with his self-interrogation revealing his internal struggle over his newfound lust for Isabella. I would also reference how Shakespeare’s choice of syntax and structure of speech reveal Angelo’s moral turmoil as he repetitively asks himself “what’s this?” indicating his confusion and disgust for his feelings which “unshapes” him. 
• Isabella is shown to “[kneel]” by Mariana at the conclusion of the play, in order to ask for Angelo’s forgiveness. This detail is one that is easily missed, but it is an important one, as it is an obvious reference to Christianity, and symbolises Isabella’s return to her “gentle and fair” and “saint” like nature. 

2. Drawing Connections Between Characters - Analyse Their Similarities and Differences. 

Drawing these connections can be a useful way to incorporate other characters not necessarily mentioned in your prompt. For example, in my own English exam last year, I chose the prompt “ ...Power corrupts both Angelo and the Duke. Do you agree? ” and tried to pair Angelo and Isabella, in order to incorporate another character into my essay (so that my entire essay wasn’t just about two characters).

• A favourite pair of mine to analyse together was Angelo and Isabella. Although at first glance they seem quite different, when you read into the text a little deeper you can find many similarities. For example, while Angelo lives alone in his garden, “succumbed by brick,” requiring “two keys” to enter, “nun,” Isabella, wishes to join the nuns of Saint Clare where she “must not speak with men” or “show [her] face.” Shakespeare’s depiction of the two, stresses their seclusion, piety and restriction from the “vice” plaguing Vienna. What’s important about this point is that you can alter your wording of it to fit various points that you may make. For example, you could use this example to prove to your assessor how Isabella’s alignment with Angelo signals Shakespeare’s condemnation of her excessive puritanical nature (as I did in my body paragraph below) or, you could use these same points to argue how Angelo was once indeed a virtuous man who was similar to the “saint” Isabella, and that it was the power that corrupted him (as you could argue in the 2019 prompt). 
• Another great pair is the Duke and Angelo. Although they certainly are different in many ways, an interesting argument that I used frequently, was that they both were selfish characters who abused their power as men and as leaders in a patriarchal society. It is obvious where Angelo did this - through his cruel bribery of Isabella to “lay down the treasures of [her] body,” however the Duke’s behaviour is more subtle. The Duke’s proposal to Isabella at the conclusion of the play, as he asks her to “give [him her] hand,” in marriage, coincides with the revelation that Claudio is indeed alive. It appears that the Duke has orchestrated the timing of his proposal to most forcefully secure Isabella and in this sense, his abuse of power can be likened to Angelo’s “devilish” bribery. This is as, through Shakespeare’s depiction of Isabella, it is evident that she has little interest in marriage; she simply wishes to join a convent where she “must not speak with men,” as she lives a life of “strict restraint.” The Duke is aware of this, yet he demands Isabella to “be [his]”-  wishing to take her from her true desire and Shakespeare is able to elucidate Isabella’s distaste through her response to this: silence. By contrasting Isabella’s once powerful voice - her “speechless dialect” that can “move men” - with her silence in response to the Duke’s proposal, Shakespeare is able to convey the depth of the Duke’s selfishness and thus his similarity to Angelo.

We've got a character list for you in Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare (just scroll down to the Character section).

What’s important to realise about these bits of evidence is that you can use them in so many different prompts, provided that you tailor your wording to best answer the topic. For example, you could try fitting at least one of the above examples in these prompts: 

• ‘Give me your hand and say you will be mine…’ The characters in ‘ Measure for Measure’ are more interested in taking than giving. Discuss. 
• ‘More than our brother is our chastity.' Explore how Shakespeare presents Isabella's attitude to chastity throughout Measure for Measure .
• ‘I have seen corruption boil …' To what extent does Shakespeare explore corruption in Measure for Measure , and by what means? 
• ‘Measure or Measure presents a society in which women are denied power.’ Discuss.

How To Kick Start Your Essay with a Smashing Introduction

There’s no set way on how to write an introduction. Lots of people write them in many different ways and these can all do well! This is the best part about English - you don’t have to be writing like the person sitting next to you in order to get a good mark. I personally preferred writing short and sweet introductions, just because they were quick to write and easy to understand. 

For example, for the prompt...

“...women are frail too.” 

To what extent does ‘Measure for Measure’ examine the flaws of Isabella? 

...my topic sentences were...

• Isabella is depicted as a moral, virtuous and pious woman, but it is this aspect of her nature that paradoxically aligns her with the “tyrannous” Angelo. 
• Shakespeare explores the hypocrisy and corruption of Isabella as a flaw, as she deviates from her initially “gentle and fair” nature.
• Despite exploring Isabella’s flaws to a large degree, Shakespeare does indeed present her redemption at the denouement of the play. 

...and my introduction was: 

William Shakespeare’s play, ‘Measure for Measure’ depicts a seventeenth century Viennese society in which disease, misconduct and licentiousness are rife. It is upon a backdrop of such ordeals that Shakespeare presents the character of Isabella, who is initially depicted as of stark contrast to the libertine populate of Vienna. To a considerable extent, ‘Measure for Measure’ does indeed examine the flaws of the “gentle and fair” Isabella, but Shakespeare suggests that perhaps she is not “saint” nor “devil,” rather that she is a human with her own flaws and with her own redeeming qualities. 

Instead of rewording my topic sentences, I touched on them more vaguely, because I knew that I wouldn’t get any ‘extra’ points for repeating them twice, essentially.  However, if you feel more confident in touching on your topic sentences more specifically - go ahead!! There are so many different ways to write an introduction! Do what works for you! 

Body Paragraphs 

This body paragraph included my pairing between Angelo and Isabella. My advice would be to continue to incorporate the language used in the prompt. In this paragraph, you can see me use the word “flaw” quite a bit, just in order to ensure that I’m actually answering the prompt , not a prompt that I have studied before. 

Isabella is depicted as a moral, virtuous and pious woman, but it is this aspect of her nature that paradoxically aligns her with the “tyrannous” Angelo. Where Angelo is “of ample grace and honour,” Isabella is “gentle and fair.” Where Angelo believes in “stricture and firm abstinence,” Isabella too believes that “most desire should meet the full blow of justice.” This similarity is enhanced by their seclusion from the lecherous society in which they reside. Angelo lives alone in his garden, “succumbed by brick,” requiring “two keys” to enter, whilst Isabella desires the life of a nun where she “must not speak with men” or “show [her] face.” This depiction of both Angelo and Isabella stresses their seclusion, piety and restriction from the “vice” that the libertine populate is drunk from. However, Shakespeare’s revelation that Angelo is “yet a devil” though “angel on the outward side,” is perhaps Shakespeare’s commentary on absolute stricture being yet a facade, a flaw even. Shakespeare presents Isabella’s chastity and piety as synonymous with her identity, which ultimately leaves her unable to differentiate between the two, as she states that she would “throw down [her] life,” for Claudio, yet maintains that “more than our brother is our chastity.” Though virtuous in a sense, she is cruel in another. Although at first glance, Shakespeare’s depiction of Isabella’s excessive puritanical nature appears to be her virtue, by aligning her with the “devil” that is Angelo, it appears that this is indeed her flaw. 

Conclude Your Essay by Dazzling Your Assessor!  

My main tip for a conclusion is to finish it off with a confident commentary of the entire piece and what you think that the author was trying to convey through their words (in relation to the topic). For example, in pretty much all of my essays, I would conclude with a sentence that referenced the entire play -  for example, how it appeared to be such a polarising play, with largely exaggerated, polarising characters/settings (eg. Angelo and the Duke, or the brothels that stood tall next to the monastery): 

Ultimately, Shakespeare’s play ‘Measure for Measure,’ depicts Isabella as a multifaceted character. She is not simply one thing - not simply good nor bad -  her character’s depiction continues to oscillate between the polar ends of the spectrum. Although yes, she does have flaws, so too does she have redeeming qualities. Though at times deceitful and hypocritical, she too is forgiving and gentle. Thus, as Shakespeare’s play, ‘Measure for Measure,’ does centre on polarising characters in a polarising setting, perhaps through his exploration of Isabella’s flaws alongside her virtues, he suggests that both the good and the bad inhabit us.

Measure for Measure is usually studied in the Australian curriculum under Area of Study 1 - Text Response. For a detailed guide on Text Response, check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response .

Bombshells and The Penelopiad are studied as part of VCE English's Comparative. For one of most popular posts on Comparative (also known as Reading and Comparing), check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Comparative.

1. Introductions

Bombshells is a collection of six monologues written by Joanna Murray-Smith, each featuring one female character who is symbolic of a specific stage in life and role. Together, they are a telling account of the struggles of being a woman in a modern world, and the monologue format allows the author to emphasise how they are simultaneously unique and universally relatable.

The Penelopiad is Margaret Atwood’s retelling of Homer’s Odyssey from Odysseus’ wife Penelope’s point of view. The story is narrated first-person by Penelope who resides in the underworld, but is also peppered with spoken, sung or chanted testimonies from the twelve dead maids of the story who act as a Chorus, a traditional part of ancient Greek theatre. Although the story is old and much-retold, the voice is modern and the author’s messages concerning women and their position in the world and their relationship with men are universal, regardless of the historical period.

3. Characters

The Penelopiad

4. Sample paragraphs

Prompt: How do Bombshells and The Penelopiad emphasise the subtleties of the male-female relationship dynamic?

Introduction

While the narratives of both Bombshells and The Penelopiad are firmly focused on the female perspective of issues relevant to them, the texts also address the male perspective and role in such issues. Like the women, the men created by the authors have instrumental roles in the way the stories play out, which interestingly are sometimes disproportionate to their actual involvement in the plot.

Body paragraph

One of the main differences between the texts, other than the literary format, is the level of dialogue and active participation afforded to the male characters. In The Penelopiad , the male characters arguably largely direct Penelope’s life, from her father essentially selling her into marriage to Odysseus’ life-disrupting departure, return and ‘lies…tricks and… thieving’, not to mention her ‘quite spoiled’ son Telemachus’ will to usurp and disobey his mother. Penelope’s narration gives them large amounts of dialogue and paints them as three-dimensional people in her life, whereas the male characters in Bombshells have barely any dialogue – most of them have none – and yet manage to cause a similar level of turmoil in the female characters. The marriage of Theresa McTerry to her fiancé Ted, for example, sends her into long, capitalised rants heavily punctuated with exclamation marks and profanities; Murray-Smith does not even give Ted a full description. Even without forming the male characters into rich, detailed personas, she still manages to fully showcase the chaos visited upon Theresa by her ill-considered marriage. She draws greater attention to her inner panic and desperation than we see in Penelope, whose voice retains a sense of shocked detachment even when crying or suffering. As such, the differing approaches of the authors both showcase the fact that men can wreak significant havoc with women’s lives, and that we do not actually need to know much about the particulars of the men or their acts to comprehend the women’s suffering.

The approaches of Atwood and Murray-Smith towards the level of engagement of their male characters differ significantly, yet both show the full impact of their actions on the lives of their female counterparts. Even when the men are given only cursory mentions, their presence as an agent of change within the story is sufficient for them to dramatically alter the courses of the characters they consort with.

More full sample A+ essays available in our Ultimate VCE English Study Guide Bundle.

It’s very hard to look past the overt feminist overtones of both try – even though these are some of the most interesting parts of the texts and you definitely should discuss them, there is more to them than messages about women. Maybe expand your view to more general ideas about human beings, how we live our lives and the ways we react to situations of duress.

Also consider that these texts are in two different formats; how does the live performance of Bombshells change the way it is perceived? How do the different media of these texts support or emphasise the authors’ messages? What can a monologue do better than a book in terms of transmitting an idea and vice versa?

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2. Historical Context

3. Main Characters

4. Minor Characters

5. Dissecting an A+ Essay using 'The Golden Age'

6. Creative Essay Topic Brainstorm

7. Essay Topics

The Golden Age is usually studied in the Australian curriculum under Area of Study 1 - Text Response. For a detailed guide on Text Response, check out our VCE Text Response Study Guide.

Even though this hasn’t been one of the more popular choices on the VCE text list, Joan London’s The Golden Age is a personal favourite of mine for a number of reasons. This is a novel about the experiences of children recovering from polio inside a convalescent home in Perth. With a sympathetic and warm approach, London tells the tragic yet brave stories of these children, as well as the stories of their parents and carers.

The novel essentially revolves around Frank Gold, a Hungarian Jew and a war refugee, and London blends his mature voice with the innocence of a coming-of-age narrative, all set against the backdrop of World War II.

As you’re reading the book, watch out for her literary or poetic language, and keep track of the story’s overall mood. These will be important considerations for text study, particularly if you are to write a creative response on this text for your SAC. With this in mind, I’ve included writing exercises throughout this blog post for you to practise writing creatively on this text.

If you are writing analytically on this text, either for your SAC or for your exam, you may still complete the exercises—each one should still be insightful for your writing in some way. Also, feel free to check the video below; it breaks down an analytical prompt for this text.

Historical Context

This novel is set in Perth during the early 1940s, which gives rise to a couple of interesting historical elements all intersecting in the book.

Crucially, the events of the novel take place for the most part while World War II is raging in Europe. This is important for understanding the backstory of the Gold family: they are Hungarian Jews who have escaped their war-torn home of Budapest to seek safety in Australia. In particular, we know that at some stage, Meyer had been taken away to a labour camp, and that Frank had had to hide himself in an attic.

Their Hungarian heritage, however, is something that distances them from other Australians, and they never really get a good chance to settle in, always feeling like they just weren’t on the same wavelength as the locals. In many ways, the story of the Golds is underpinned by tragedy—not only are they war refugees, but young Frank then contracts poliomyelitis (known to us just as polio), which forces the family to reassess all the plans they had for him to settle into an ordinary, Australian life.

However, Frank was far from the only victim of polio at the time—the entire nation was rocked by a wave of polio , with major outbreaks during the 1930s-40s. This was quite a nerve-wracking, and causing great fear for our country and its active, outdoors-y culture. The prospects of death, paralysis and permanent disability were understandably terrifying. About 70,000 people were affected, and almost half of them eventually died as a result. Almost every Australian at the time knew or knew of someone who had polio.

Task: You are Ida, composing a letter to Julia Marai after Frank’s diagnosis. Convey succinctly (in 250 words or less) what you think and how you feel. ‍

Key themes & implications.

I like to think that a lot of the themes in this book exist in diametric or opposing pairs. For instance, London gives Frank a voice that is wise beyond his years, yet uses it to tell a tender story of first love. She also plays on the paradox that while some characters have become isolated due to the unfortunate events that have befallen them, these very events end up becoming the thing that unite them.

Essentially, London plays with a lot of these thematic tensions, showing us that life isn’t really ever black and white, but there are whole lot of grey areas in every day life.

Central to the novel are ideas of innocence or childhood . These ideas are really explored in the friendship between Frank and Elsa, who are both on the cusp of adolescence. While they are set up as young lovers in the eyes of readers, we know that they are far too young to truly have romantic feelings for each other. In actual fact, their interactions are permeated by a sense of innocence.

However, these interactions are also punctuated by a sense of maturity , a desire for more. This is evident to the extent where nurses are getting hesitant about leaving them alone with each other (even though their parents still trust them entirely). In actual fact, these parents serve as an important point of contrast. Some manage to recapture the magic of youth even as adults—consider Ida reigniting her love for the piano, or Meyer jumping on opportunities to start anew. In this sense, innocence and maturity are a pair of themes that are interestingly not always found where one might expect.

Another key thematic element of the novel is tragedy or adversity , which are relevant to a far wider gamut of characters. Considering the story’s geographical and historical setting, it seems evident that these ideas will play a major role in the story. A particularly poignant example lies in Sullivan, who contracts polio right on the cusp of adulthood, and readers can’t help but feel a sense of loss for what might have been.

However, on the other end of this spectrum is the strength required to cope with their suffering. While Sullivan had his indefatigable sense of humour, other characters have developed different mechanisms to stay strong in the face of adversity. In some cases, you might say that they’ve transcended or risen above their tragedies, and become stronger for it.

Finally, London also tackles the idea of isolation , which can be seen as a consequence of tragedy—characters become isolated because they lose their ability to relate to others, and others feel unable to relate to them. Symbolically, the Golden Age hospital is surrounded by four roads and therefore cut off from the world, almost as if quarantined. However, the solidarity and unity of patients inside becomes a great source of strength—I’ll leave it to you to think about what London was trying to say with this!

Task: Selecting one of the above themes, write a poem from the POV of an imaginary spectator in the novel, outlining how you perceive/experience these themes in other characters. Use all five senses(how you see it, hear it, smell it, taste it, and touch/feel it)

Major characters.

I haven’t written too extensively about characters for a range of reasons: on one hand, it’s important for you to form your own interpretations about what they’re like and why they do the things they do, but on the other hand, I wanted to leave you with some key points to consider and/or some essential points about their characters to incorporate into your writing. This will allow you to hopefully feel like you’re capturing them accurately when writing your creatives, but without feeling restricted by an extensive set of traits that you have to invoke.

• the central character, he is cerebral, intelligent and mature (which we can tell from his narrative voice, or how he ‘sounds’)
• he is, however, still very young, wide-eyed, inquisitive in spite of the tragedies which have befallen him (consider how he sees his relationship with Elsa)
• also significant is the motif of his poetry; not only does it highlight his maturity, but it also acts as a way for him to voice or articulate his feelings and experiences in the hospital—you could try incorporating some poetry in your writing (either original poems or quoted from the novel)

Elsa Briggs

• another central character who becomes quite attached to Frank (they are the two eldest children in the Golden Age)
• she is warm, caring and selfless, demonstrating an emotional maturity beyond her years (because of having to bear the metaphorical albatross of polio)
• a lot of what we know about Elsa comes from Frank’s perspective (though we do get some insight from her own, and some from her mother’s)—how does this shape the way we see her? Consider London’s use of imagery, portraying her as an angelic figure.

Ida & Meyer

• Frank’s parents, Hungarian Jews, and war refugees who come to Australia to cleanse them of their pasts and to have a fresh start; some of this is purely by circumstance, but there are parts of their past that they willingly and actively eschew e.g. Ida’s piano
• note that Hungary is a landlocked country in the midst of European hustle and bustle with easy access to other nations/cultures/peoples, but Australia is an island on the other side of the world—consider how this affects their sense of isolation
• on the other hand, they do form new connections with people here and in their own individual ways; Ida by reclaiming her pianist talents and Meyer by taking up a new job

Task: You are Elsa, Ida, or Meyer and you’ve just discovered Frank’s poem book. What are your thoughts and feelings towards his writing? Consider the context of your chosen character’s own experiences

Minor characters.

I’m sure you’ve heard it by now, but any piece of text-based writing (creative or analytical) can be strengthened by diversifying the range of characters that you write about. Even though you’ve already differentiated yourself from most VCE students by even doing this text at all (very few people choose it, so props to you!), some inclusion of more minor characters might help to distinguish yourself further. I’ve picked some that I think are interesting to talk about, but feel free to experiment with others as well!

• a young man who contracts a severe strand of polio right on the cusp of adulthood, thereby exemplifying the theme of tragedy—however, his sense of humour remains active in spite of his immobility, so perhaps he not only exemplifies this theme but subverts it as well
• London poses the complex question of whether or not he’s actually unhappy or defeated as a result of polio; there’s no clear answer, since there’s many ways to interpret his humour (is it a sign of strength or is it a front for inner turmoils expressed through poetry?)
• in addition to his humour and poetry, his relationship with his family could also be an interesting point of discussion to address some of these questions
• a young girl in the hospital who is quite close to Elsa (almost in a sisterly way)—how have they developed this relationship, and how does this relate to the theme of unity/companionship/human connection?
• notably, she wanted to rehabilitate herself after polio took away her ability to feed the brumbies in her desert town—think about how this might represent strength as well

Julia Marai & Hedwiga

• Ida’s former piano teacher and her flatmate/partner who live at the top of an apartment block in Budapest; they shelter Frank in their attic under no obligation whatsoever, but purely out of the kindness and selflessness of their hearts
• again, there’s this subversion of what it means to be isolated: on one hand, their apartment is so cut off from the rest of the world below, and they lead a largely self-sufficient life together, but on the other hand, the fact that they’re together means that they’re not entirely isolated consider the power of human connection in this context as well

Task: Pick a minor character from this list and a character from the above list of major characters, and write about them meeting each other for the first time. Pick two that do not already interact closely within the novel e.g. Elsa meeting Sullivan

I hope this gives you some ideas or starting points about writing creatively on this text!

Download the PDF version of The Golden Age study guide   here .

Dissecting an A+ Essay using 'The Golden Age'

Picture this: you’re sitting down at your desk, fumbling your fingers, inspecting the new stationary that you convinced yourself you needed for year 12, resisting the urge to check your phone. Your text response SAC is in two weeks. You’re freaking out because you want, no, need an A+. You decide to write a practice essay for your English teacher. Practice makes perfect, right? You stay up for hours, pouring your heart and soul into this essay. The result? B+. Where did I go wrong?

That’s where I come in! Writing an A+ essay can be really tough without examples and specific advice. Before reading on, make sure you've read our Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response so you are up to scratch.

I will be explaining some basic dos and don’ts of writing an essay on The Golden Age , providing a model essay as an example.

The following prompt will be referenced throughout the post;

‘The Golden Age’ shows that everyone needs love and recognition. Discuss.

Planning: the silent killer of A+ essays

I’m sure your teachers have emphasised the importance of planning. In case they haven’t, allow me to reiterate that great planning is compulsory for a great essay . However, flimsy arguments aren’t going to get you an A+. The examiners are looking for complex arguments , providing a variety of perspectives of the themes at hand. From the above prompt, the key word is, ‘discuss’. This means that you should be discussing the prompt, not blindly agreeing with it . Make sure you don’t write anything that wouldn’t sit right with London. ‍

Don’t plan out basic arguments that are one-dimensional. This may give you a pass in English, but won’t distinguish you as a top-scoring student.

For example:

• Paragraph 1: The children at TGA need love and recognition.
• Paragraph 2: Ida and Meyer need love and recognition
• Paragraph 3: Sister Penny needs love and recognition.

The above paragraphs merely agree with the statement, but don’t delve into the many aspects of the novel that could contribute to a sophisticated essay.

Do create complex arguments, or paragraphs with a twist! If you can justify your argument and it makes sense, include it in your essay. There are many ways that you could answer this question, but my plan looks like this:

• Paragraph 1: Frank Gold yearns for mature, adult love, not recognition from onlookers or outsiders
• Paragraph 2: Ida Gold does not seek recognition from Australia, but love and validation from herself
• Paragraph 3: Albert requires love from a specific kind of relationship – family, and Sullivan may view love from his father as pity which he rebukes

See the difference?

The introduction: how to start your essay off with a BANG!

Personally, I always struggled with starting an introduction. The examiners will be reading and marking thousands of essays, so if possible, starting your introduction with something other than Joan London’s ‘The Golden Age’… is a great way to make you stand out from the crowd. Having a strong start is essential to pave the way for a clear and concise essay. You could start with a quote/scene from the text! This is not essential, but it’s a great way to mix things up. This is my start:

Perhaps nothing exemplifies the power of love and recognition more than the bond between Albert Sutton and his older sister, Lizzie, in Joan London’s ‘The Golden Age’. Many of London’s characters exhibit suffering that requires compassion and support to heal and grow, to distinguish present from past. However, London explores the perspectives of such characters from different aspects of trauma, and emphasise that love and recognition do not always work to heal and mature. Frank Gold, the novel’s resident “sneaky” boy who adjusts to newfound life in the Golden Age Convalescent Home seeks love as an adult, rather than eliciting sympathy as a supposed victim. Here love and recognition are unsuccessful in amending Frank’s troubles when given from the perspective of an outsider, a judgemental onlooker. In a similar sense, Ida Gold seeks recognition not from Australia, who she views as a ‘backwater’, but validation in herself after having been ousted from her Hungarian identity. London, however, makes sure to emphasise the impact that Sullivan has on Frank Gold’s life. Sullivan, a boy only a few years older than Frank, seems content with his future, with his fate, despite his sacrifice of rugby and conventional life.  There is a lacking sense of urgency for love and recognition in Sullivan’s life, rather, it appears that Sullivan accepts his fate, regardless of his father’s sympathy or support. Thus, London explores a myriad of ways in which love and recognition may or may not heal wounds inflicted upon individuals.

Remember, there are many other ways you could start your essay.

The body paragraphs: To TEEL or not to TEEL?

I’m sure you’ve heard of TEEL countless times since year 7. Topic sentence, evidence, explanation, link. The truth is that these elements are all very important in a body paragraph. However, following a rigid structure will render your essay bland and repetitive. It is also extremely important to note that you should be using evidence from multiple points in the text , and you should be making sure that your paragraphs are directly answering the question . Write what feels natural to you, and most importantly, don’t abuse a thesaurus . If you can’t read your essay without rummaging for a dictionary every second sentence, you should rewrite it.  If vocabulary isn’t your strong point (it definitely isn’t mine!), focus on clean sentence structure and solid arguments. There’s nothing worse than you using a fancy word incorrectly.

Don’t overuse your thesaurus in an attempt to sound sophisticated, and don’t use the same structure for every sentence. For example:

Prematurely in the paperback London makes an allusion to Norm White, the denizen horticulturalist of The Golden Age Convalescent Home…

That was an exaggerated example generated by searching for synonyms. As you can see, it sounds silly, and some of the words don’t even make sense. I mean, “denizen horticulturalist”…really?

Do mix up your paragraph structure! If vocabulary is your weak point, focus on clean language.

Here’s mine:

Early in the novel, London makes reference to Norm White, the resident groundskeeper of The Golden Age Convalescent Home. Norm White hands Frank Gold a cigarette, “as if to say a man has the right to smoke in peace”. Here, there is a complete disregard for rule and convention, an idea that London emphasises throughout the text. This feature provides a counter-cultural experience for Frank, pushing him to realise that he is a strong human being rather than a mere victim. This is a clear contrast to the “babyishness” of the home, and is used as evidence of true humanity in an era where society judged upon the unconventional. Frank yearns for a traditional Australian life after his trauma in Hungary; “his own memory…lodged like an attic in the front part of his brain”. Hedwiga and Julia Marai’s caring of him pushed him towards fear and reluctance to trust, yet also pressured him to seek acceptance in a world that ostracises him for his Jewish heritage and polio diagnosis. This here is why Frank desires a mature, adult connection – love that regards him as an equal human being. Frank seeks Elsa’s love and company as she too loathes being reduced to a victim, an object of pity. Frank thereafter uses humour to joke of his wounds; “we Jews have to be on the lookout”. Elsa sees “a look in his eyes that she recognised”, thus their bond enables both characters to heal. London alludes that Frank requires love and recognition not from the perspective of a sorrowful onlooker, rather he longs to be recognised as a mature adult.

To learn more about using the right vocabulary, read 'Why using big words in VCE essays can make you look dumber'.

The conclusion: closing the deal

I firmly believe in short and sharp conclusions. Your body paragraphs should be thoroughly explaining your paragraphs, so don’t include any new information here. A few sentences is enough. Once again, write what feels natural, and what flows well.

Don’t drag out your conclusion. Short and concise is the key to finishing well.

Do write a sharp finish! Sentence starters such as, “Ultimately…” or “Thus, London…” are great.

Although trauma is often treated with love and compassion, London details different perspectives on this idea. Whilst Frank Gold requires a specific kind of recognition, Ida and Meyer seek validation in themselves and their relationship, whilst Sullivan is at ease with his fate and does not yearn sympathy from his father.

‍ To learn more about A+ essays, you should also have a read of 10 easy English points you're missing out on .

I'll finish off by giving you an exercise: brainstorm and write up a plan for the essay topic shown in the video below. I'd recommend you do this before watching Lisa's brainstorm and plan. That way, you can see which of your ideas overlapped, but also potentially see which ideas you may have missed out on. Good luck!

The Golden Age Essay Topic Brainstorm

[Video Transcript]

The takeaway message for this video will be to utilise minor characters here and there to deepen your argument. London has really developed all her characters to feel three-dimensional and real, so it’s important not to just write about Frank and Elsa when there are so many others worth touching on.

Let's head straight into background information:

Joan London’sThe Golden Age is a novel about children recovering from polio in a convalescent home in Perth. She tells the stories of these various children, their families, and their caretakers, focusing on FrankGold and Elsa Briggs, the young protagonists who are just starting to develop romantic feelings for each other. Though they, and many of the other children, have faced much hardship and misfortune, London tells a story of hope and human connection in times of misery.

On that note, today’s essay topic is:

The Golden Age  is primarily a tragic tale of isolation. Discuss.

Let’s break this prompt down and define some keywords. The keywords we’ll be looking at first are isolation and tragic. We’ll be defining them quite briefly, but be sure to think about these in terms of how they relate to the novel. In particular, see if any scenes, passages or characters jump to mind.

Isolation is a state of being alone or away from others and can be associated with a sense of powerlessness or insignificance. Tragic can simply just mean sad, depressing and loaded with sorrow or ‘pathos’, but there are also literary implications to this word: you might’ve done a tragic Shakespeare play and learned this before, but in general, a tragic story centres on a hero who encounters misfortune, and treats their demise in a serious or solemn way. Note that a good essay will discuss both these terms, and will address not only isolation but also the question of whether or not it is treated tragically.

The other important word is ‘primarily’. This word in the prompt suggests that The Golden Age is  for the most part  about these ideas - for you, that means you should ask yourself how central you think they are, and make a call on whether they are the  most  central.

Well, it’s definitely true that elements of isolation and separation do exist in The Golden Age, but these themes are not primarily tragic ideas in the novel -London explores the way in which hope can shine through in times of hardship. In fact, the novel overall has a message of kinship and hope, and this would be the primary thematic focus, as well as the main treatment of otherwise tragic ideas. So how might this look in paragraphs?

Paragraph 1: Let’s concede that the novel does evoke sadness through its frequently sombre tone and treatment of isolation

We see this through characters such as Ida and Meyer, who have been cut off from the world in their escape from their war-torn home, and forced to transition from their landlocked Hungary to an island on the other side of the globe. Their struggle to adjust is evoked through symbols - for instance, black cockatoos, which represent a “homely, comforting” omen to locals, sound “melancholy [and] harsh” to Ida. In particular, London’s solemn characterisation of Ida as constantly “frowning”, and as having a “bitter little mouth that usually gripped a cigarette ”works to emphasise her ennui or her dissatisfaction with being cut off from the world. Their homesickness is evoked through this constant longing for home, though sometimes much more literally: Meyer feels that “never again on this earth…would, he feel at home as he once had.”

Similarly, the story of Sullivan Backhouse, confined in an “iron lung” and physically isolated from outside contact, is also primarily tragic. London develops this character and gives him a backstory - he has “just turned eighteen” and had been the “prefect [and] captain of the rowing team.” This gives readers an idea of the life he might have had if not for the tragedy of his condition. Even in spite of his “good-humoured nature”, his poetry belies the pessimism within - his book, morbidly entitled “on my last day on earth”, closes with the line “in the end, we are all orphans.” We can thus see how lonely he must have felt when he tragically passed away.

In this paragraph, we’ve considered three different characters, whereas a lot of people writing on this text might just do a character per paragraph, so this is a good way to really show the examiners that you’ve considered the full extent of what the book offers. Let’s continue this as we move onto…

Paragraph 2: We disagree, however, since the novel includes various other moods and thematic material - in particular, London explores notions of resolve and hope in times of hardship 

Now, the first character that comes to mind would have to be Elsa - London uses particularly powerful imagery, such as her “translucent”, “golden wave” of hair or even her “profile, outlined in light”, to portray her as angelic or elysian. For the children, Elsa evidently represents hope - even in her state of isolation, her “graceful and dignified” demeanour and her quiet acceptance that polio “was part of her” is courageous and worthy of admiration.

Moving onto a minor character who was perhaps inspired by Elsa - the young Ann Lee, who was quite close to Elsa, also has a story which is more inspiring than tragic. When polio first crippled her, she found herself unable to give water to the brumbies in her desert town. As a result, she perseveres, “step after painstaking step” so as to be able to return home and “give a drink to thirsty creatures.” Her compassion and determination to work against her isolation become the focus of her tale.

Paragraph 3: In fact, the  novel ’s focus is on hope rather than tragedy

A range of other characters demonstrate the power of love and human connection in the face of adversity, and London seems to be focusing on these ideas instead. Plus, it’s not just the children who are brave in the face of tragedy, but ordinary people prove themselves to have the potential for strength and courage. Take Julia Marai and Hedwiga, who hide Frank in their attic during the Nazi invasion of Hungary. Even though their apartment is “on the top” of the block, and isolated in its height, suspended from the world, they become “provider[s]” for Frank. London writes that in difficult times, “kindness and unselfishness were as unexpected, as exhilarating, as genius,” and it’s easy to see how these qualities form a counterpoint to the tragedies that permeate the novel, allowing hope to shine through. 

And that’s the end of the essay! Being able to explore minor characters like we did here is a really good way to show examiners that you have a deeper understanding of a text, that you’ve considered it beyond just the main characters on the surface. The Golden Age is a really great one for this because London has done so much with her cast.

Essay topics

1. “Being close made them stronger.” In The Golden Age , adversities are tempered by camaraderie. Do you agree?

2. Despite the grim context, The Golden Age highlights and celebrates the potential of life. Discuss.

3. Memories of past successes and failures have significant lingering effects on characters in The Golden Age . Is this an accurate assessment?

4. “[I would be] a fox, following a Palomino.” How do animals such as these contribute symbolically to The Golden Age ?

5. It is largely loneliness which defines the struggles of the children in The Golden Age . Discuss.

6. In what ways is The Golden Age a novel of displacement?

7. Fear of the unknown is something which permeates The Golden Age . Is this true?

8. What is the role of family in Joan London’s The Golden Age ?

9. Isolation in The Golden Age exists in many oppressive forms. Discuss.

10. Throughout The Golden Age , London draws attention to beauty rather than to suffering. Discuss.

11. In spite of their youth, it is the children of The Golden Age who understand best what it means to be an individual in the world. Do you agree?

12. How do characters from The Golden Age learn, grow and mature as the novel takes its course?

13. Due to the range of different onset stories, each of the children and their families in The Golden Age face a different struggle with their identity. Discuss.

14. “Home. She hadn’t called Hungary that for years.” In spite of all their struggle, the Golds never truly feel any sense of belonging in Australia. To what extent do you agree?

15. Explore the factors which drive Joan London’s characters to persevere.

The Ultimate guide to VCE Text Response

Listening is always viewed as the easiest section in an EAL exam, however, it is also the easiest section for students to lose marks as many of them may carelessly misread the question and/or comprehensively fail to answer the question. I personally find listening really challenging as it requires you to concentrate on multiple things at the same time, for example, the characters’ main contention, emotions, tone shift, and the context of the recording. However, as long as you do more practice, you will soon be able to master the listening skills! Here are the 4 steps that you will have to know if you want to do well in listening!

1. Read the background information of the text

Use your reading time (15 minutes) wisely and spend around 2-3 minutes in the listening section. The background information of the text is extremely important as it tells you the context of the recording which can also give you a basic idea of the characters involved in the text and the content they will be talking about. From the background information quoted from the VCAA 2019 EAL Exam , you will be able to recognise the two characters (Sue and Joe) involved in the text and you can also relate their conversations to the garage sale.

“Sue lives in a small seaside town. She presents a regular podcast called Sue’s Local Stories for the local radio station. Today she is talking about garage sales with John, who has just moved to the town. A garage sale is a sale located in a person’s garage or in front of their house, where they sell their unwanted items.” - Background information of Text 2

2. Scan through the questions carefully

Look for the keywords in the question, such as the 5W1H (Who, When, Where, What, Which, How), the character names, and the number of points that needs to be answered in each question. READ THE QUESTIONS FOR EACH SECTION CAREFULLY. That’s the only piece of advice I can give you to avoid losing marks on careless mistakes. Usually, the questions in listening are quite straightforward and easy to follow. Hence, it is particularly important for you to understand what the question is actually asking and what you are expected to answer in order to secure full marks in that specific question.  

Examples of the 5W1H Questions

• Who is he referring to when he says “You”?
• When did he open his first bookshop?
• Where did he go after his graduation?
• What message is he trying to convey in his speech?
• Which phrase did he use to express how dry it was in the desert?
• How does he express his anger?

3. Note taking

You should be using the spaces provided in the exam answer booklet to jot down any key words and phrases that are related to the questions. Do not bother to fill in the answers on the answer line just yet, as you are very likely to get distracted, hence, it may increase the risk of missing the answer for the next question. Remember that your notes should be as concise and clear as possible so you will be able to write down the answers immediately once the recording stops.  

Examples of notes

Question 1: Which type of animal does Sarah think is cleaner? Give an example and comment on her delivery.

• “MUCH MUCH cleaner” → emphasis

Question 2: How does Ryan show his feelings about plastic waste? Comment on his language choice and delivery.

• Exclaims → “putting sea life in a serious situation”
• Critical tone → emphasise the harm caused

4. Focus on the questions that you’ve missed

Bear in mind that you will have the chance to listen to the recording two times in total so please DO NOT stress if you miss out any answers or you are not sure about the answers after the first time. Highlight the questions that you have trouble with and focus on them when the recording is played the second time. 

If you have any spare time, I would recommend you to go through all your answers and check them in case you have any careless mistakes. Alternatively, if you are really confident with all your answers in the listening section, you could definitely start doing other sections in the exam, such as the Language Analysis and Text Response section.

Types of Questions you may get in Listening

In this section, I am going to introduce a few question types that can be seen in SACs and EAL exams. You will be able to perform well in all listening tasks if you do enough practices and are very familiar with these different questions:

• Support your answer with one piece of evidence from the text
• Give an example of delivery and language use to support your answer
• Give an example of the character’s indirect language
• What is the purpose of the text?
• Describe the character’s tone
• Describe the interaction between the characters

1. Support your answer with one piece of evidence from the text

This is a basic question type that can be seen in nearly every single listening task. It just means that you will have to quote a word or a phrase from the text in order to support your answer. Please ensure that your spelling is correct and the phrase that you quote is in the exact same wording as what the characters have said in the recording. You will only get the mark for your evidence if the above two rules are followed.

2. Give an example of delivery and language use to support your answer

You have to pay attention to the tone, pace and wording of the characters in order to answer this question. This kind of question is kind of tough, however, as long as you can memorise couples of examples of delivery, you will be able to answer this question effectively. 

Here are some examples of delivery and language use:

• Repetition — “No, no, no”
• Imperatives — “Do not do this…”
• Fast pace — “[quickly] What are we supposed to do now?” 
• Pausing — “But…”
• Place emphasis on words — “We have to STRIVE for our rights!”
• Increased volume
• Asking a question rather than making a direct statement
• Emphatic tone — “Do what I said!

3. Give an example of the character’s indirect language

An indirect language refers to an expression of the content of a statement in a longer or unclear fashion. It is often used in negotiation, diplomacy and in different types of embarrassing situations which can avoid the person from directly saying what he/she means.

Here are some examples:

“Oh… well… I am just browsing”

"Ummm… I am still thinking about it”

4. What is the character’s main argument?

In order to answer this question, you will have to pay attention to the standpoint of the character and be able to find the strongest point raised by him/her in the text. That’s why you have to read the background information of the listening task carefully and deliberately before you actually start looking into specific questions. This will enable you to have a basic idea of the character’s viewpoint towards the issue. Besides, the aim of this question is to test your understanding towards the text and your ability to interpret the character’s reasonings. Therefore, I would recommend you to focus on how the character is structuring his/her argument in order to help you to find the strongest argument. Bear in mind that your answer will have to be precise in order to secure full marks. No marks will be awarded to you if your answer is vague and not straightforward.

5. Describe the character’s tone

• Outraged tone — “Can you stop?”
• Astonished tone — “Wow!”
• Nostalgic tone — “I missed my hometown”
• Patriotic tone — “I am proud to be an Australian.”
• Amiable tone — “Nice to meet you.”
• Encouraging tone — “You can do it!”
• Accusing tone — “How could you make that mistake!”

You can also read through 195 Language Analysis Tones if you want to learn more tone words in order to drastically improve and expand your vocabulary. You are encouraged to memorise tone words as you will be able to apply them on your Language Analysis section as well!

6. Describe the interaction between the characters

Words to describe positive interactions:

Words to describe negative interactions:

• Disrespectful

For more resources on the Listening Exam and VCE EAL, check out The Ultimate Guide to EAL .   To see further advice, resources and samples for listening practice, see EAL Listening Practice And Resources (Part 1), EAL Listening Practice (Part 2), Tips on EAL Listening and How To Take Speedy Notes During Listening Component of VCE EAL Exam .

1. What’s the Difference Between Year 9 English and Year 7/8 (Junior years)? 2. What Are You Expected To Cover in Year 9? 3. Assessments and Exams 4. How To Prepare for the Assessments and Exams

Did you know that when you finish high school and you decide to apply for a part time job, you’re expected to recite every single essay you’ve ever written word for word? 

Alright, you got me, I’m kidding!

You may be wondering why is the subject English mandatory? What’s the point of it? When am I ever going to apply the skills I’ll learn in English in real life?

Yes, math, science and even humanities subjects may have more apparent skill transfer to careers like medicine, politics and engineering, but the soft skills that many employers are after these days (such as strong communication skills and confident presentation skills) will develop as you continue with your English studies. And yes, if you plan on being a business owner, these skills are all the more important!

Of course, post-high school won’t involve writing essays and responding to essay topics but they help you build your critical thinking, creativity and understanding intentions (why people do what they do).

These skills will be extremely valuable to you regardless of the path you choose to pursue in life.

Let’s get straight into the nitty gritty of things then...

1. What’s the Difference Between Year 9 English and Year 7/8?

Achievement standards in the Victorian Curriculum from Years 7-9 build upon each other, and the skills learnt during the junior years will be expanded on in Year 9.

In Year 7 , students will be introduced to different text structures (novels, opinion pieces, editorials, speeches, etc.) and focus primarily on the audience, purpose and context of using these text structures. 

You would have had the opportunity to: 

• Explain ideas and issues explored in your texts (e.g. happiness, relationships, conflict, etc.)
• Begin looking at the implied meaning of evidence in your texts (this means forming your own interpretation of what you think the author is trying to say through characterising certain characters the way they are, or through the use of certain symbols, quotes, etc.)

The writing standard predominantly draws from: 

• A mixture of your own personal knowledge and experiences 
• Researched sources, such as news articles, reviews, etc.
• Your own analysis of the assigned texts (usually linking your analysis to a prompt)

Building on the grammatical and foundational writing skills taught in primary school, Year 7 students will need to apply them when writing and editing their work.

Year 8 English develops the students' critical thinking a bit more. You would have been expected to: 

• Interpret assigned texts, ' questioning the reliability of sources of ideas and information ' (know that some texts you will come across may be biased and only expose one side of the argument)
• Make judgments about the effectiveness of language choices used by creators 
• Understand how specific and selective choices of language are used by creators for different effects and purposes (be able to explain your reasoning as to how the conventions of language features used by an author enhance their point of view)

Year 9 English takes the previous two years’ worth of skills even further. This year you will be expected to: 

• Analyse the ways in which different ' text structures can be manipulated for effect '
• Evaluate and integrate ideas from your assigned texts to create your own interpretations
• Realise the importance of planning before writing as well as the need for the drafting process in order to produce A+ level work (an introduction to writing will be provided)
• Be exposed to a wider range of forms of text compared to the junior years which are mainly novels and films 
• Extend your lists of vocabulary and techniques

2. What Are You Expected To Cover in Year 9?

One of the most important skills needed in English is being able to write an analytical essay. This entails presenting an argument about your prompt based on your assigned texts. To do this well, you will need to discuss characters, literary features, structure, themes and big ideas .

The point of the analytical essay is for you to demonstrate your ability to analyse the evidence you choose to incorporate into your essay while linking it back to the idea you’re exploring in the body paragraph. One way to approach this is to provide your own interpretation of evidence. 

This will be elaborated on with examples below.

Structure is also just as important as the content when writing an English essay. Most of the time, particularly in Year 9, your teacher will provide you with a specific structure to follow. This tends to include:

• An introduction (100 words)
• 3x body paragraphs (200 words each)
• A conclusion (50-100 words)

The amount of detail you include in each of your paragraphs will increase over the years. Once you reach Year 12, your essay will sit roughly around the 1000 words mark. For now, try to aim to write around 800 words. Just remember that quality always supersedes quantity . Ensure that the 800 words you write have relevance and are not just word vomit on a page.

The Introduction

Think of the introduction as a to-do list. You can always refer back to it to remind yourself of the points you need to cover and it will keep you on track so you don’t sway from the prompt in your essay. Your introduction sets the scene for the reader. All you have to do is introduce your overall stance (contention) and your three main points (arguments) you want to unpack in the essay. In some cases, teachers would also prefer for you to add in an introduction to the text(s) you’re studying and provide some background information or an overview of the text’s social or historical context. 

The Body Paragraph

The most important components of your essay are the body paragraphs. That is where the bulk of your marks will come from - your analysis! Different schools have different acronyms they may follow for their body paragraphs, but the most common one is TEEL. 

• ‍ T opic Sentence
• E xplanation

As you move up into Year 10, 11 and 12, many schools will extend the acronym to TEEEEEL , meaning that you will be expected to expand on the level and depth of your analysis.

Let’s break up TEEL a bit more…

‘T’ - Topic Sentence

Your topic sentence should support your stance (contention). Your contention should answer the prompt or topic, and your arguments (which form the basis for your topic sentences) should provide a reason for your stance . Because of this, your topic sentence should directly answer the prompt. 

Examples of topic sentences include:

• 'Orwell indicates that for goals to be achieved, teamwork and cooperation among everyone involved will be necessary.' - taken from a Text Response Essay based on George Orwell’s Animal Farm
• The author portrays kindness and understanding as key factors that contribute to successful relationships.

‘E’ - Evidence

Most of the time, the evidence you embed into your body paragraphs will be in the form of quotes from the text . High scoring responses will also analyse evidence such as camera angles (film) or narrative conventions (novels).

Embedding quotes doesn’t always come easy to every student. Preferably, the quote you embed into your analysis will be no more than 10 words and no less than 2 words. 

Rules to keep in mind when you incorporate a quote into your writing:

• Avoid using a quote to form the whole sentence. 
• Don’t begin a sentence with a quote
• Single word quotes should rarely be used. They should only appear in your analysis if you’re exploring a unique, big idea that is conveyed by that one word.
• Use square brackets ‘[  ]’ if you want to change up the quote

It would be helpful to embed the quote into context first as this will help when you’re explaining its relevance to the idea you’re exploring in the body paragraph. 

For Example:

Parallels can be drawn to the ways in which the pigs in the farm have the role of organisers 'naturally [fall] upon' them. Here, the pigs are portrayed as 'the cleverest of the animals', suggesting that they are the leaders who make the decisions on behalf of everyone…

- taken from a Text Response Essay based on George Orwell’s Animal Farm

‘E’ - Explanation

Listing all the quotes you can memorise from the text is not going to get you the marks. You need to analyse the quotes you embed and share your interpretation of the meaning they add to the idea you’re exploring. 

Similar to math, where you need to show all the steps to prove that you know how to get the right answer, in English, the ‘explanation’ section is your opportunity to do just that. You need to explain your thought process regarding how you have reached this conclusion or interpretation. 

Can you pinpoint the differences between the low-scoring response and the high-scoring response below?

Low-Scoring Example:

Big Brother’s lack of compassion is evident through its elimination of personal relationships between the Party members. A marriage is always refused 'if the couple concerned gave the impression of being physically attracted to one another'. This means that the institution of marriage has been manipulated to only serve Big Brother.

- taken from LSG’s How To Write A Killer Text Response study guide

High-Scoring Example:

The distortion of family relationships highlights the cruelty of Big Brother’s institution. Children are taught from an early age to be ‘spies’ for Big Brother. The children symbolise the eyes of Big Brother, as they are always watching members for 'any sign of betrayal to the Party'. Ironically, although Winston believes that 'another year, two years, and they (the children) will be watching (the mother) night and day for signs of unorthodox', it is shown soon after that the father, Parsons, is denounced for 'thoughtcrime'. *** Through this condemnation of their own father, the children also symbolise the destruction of family relationships in return for their loyalty to Big Brother. This unnerving vision of a complete disposal of relationships depicts how brutal a totalitarian society can be for its members in that the very fundamentals of human connection, such as love and family, are corrupted .***

- taken from LSG’s How To Write A Killer Text Response study guide*

***The ‘explanation’/analysis is located between the asterisks.

The linking sentence is the last sentence of your body paragraph and it should always ‘link’ back to the main idea you have explored (topic sentence) as well as the prompt. Avoid merely rewording your topic sentence, and a hint to do this well is to refer to the creator’s intent .

• 'Ultimately, the loss and alteration of meaning within marriage and sex demonstrates how brutal a dystopian society can be for individuals, and as Orwell forewarns, can be the destruction of humanity itself.' - taken from LSG’s How To Write A Killer Text Response study guide
• 'Orwell cautions his readers to be wary of societies such as the Big Brother regime by portraying the cruelty of the Party’s actions.' - taken from LSG’s How To Write A Killer Text Response study guide

Check out our video, ' What do year 9s learn in English? ' for a more in depth look at what's expected of you this year!

3. Year 9 Assessments and Exams

In Year 9, this is where you will gain exposure to an array of forms of texts, ranging from creative responses, speeches, analytical essays, film, poetry and persuasive pieces.

Throughout the year, you will study a range of different texts (the ones mentioned above) and the activities and assessment tasks you will receive will be based on these texts. 

Generally, by the end of Year 9, you will have completed: 

• A creative response,
• A persuasive essay (formatted as an opinion piece, editorial, or letter to the editor),
• An oral presentation about a particular issue,
• A film analysis , and/or 
• An analytical essay based on a play, novel or poems

Throughout the year, you may receive different types of classwork, depending on your teacher. These may include:

• Performances
• Group presentations
• Comprehension questions
• Practise essays/paragraphs
• And so much more!

4. How To Prepare for the Assessments and Exams in Year 9?

Practise, practise, practise! 

One of our most common sayings at LSG is 'study smarter, not harder'. This means knowing where your weaknesses lie and doing what you must to improve upon them. Don’t stick to your comfort zone too much - allow yourself to do the unfamiliar enough times to make it familiar. This will also help you build confidence within yourself when you see the progress you make.

Here are a couple of tips for you to help you prepare for any upcoming assessments and exams like an A+ student:

Reading more than your assigned texts can help you improve your spelling, vocabulary and expression when writing! The more you read, the more knowledge you will gain about fluency and structure. I would recommend reading widely. This means not confining your reading to just purely manga, but also newspaper articles, novels, non-fiction texts, etc.

If you want to become an expert on the text you’re studying and stand out from the rest of your classmates when you get to essay writing, read more about your text. This can include reading up on the background of the author who wrote the text, investigating the social, historical and cultural context of the text. Study guides, interviews, reviews and sample high scoring essays around the text are also very helpful resources!

Drafting and Essay Feedback 

Drafting and getting essay feedback is an important cycle to come back to for the remainder of your high school career.

Going back to what I have just said, practise is key to success in English. English is often deemed to be one of the most confusing subjects because many students claim it to be subjective and will often complain that they have no idea what they’re doing. Generally, this isn’t a good sign. We understand that it can be difficult to know whether you’re on the right track or not, but it’s important we don’t just sit there and wonder the whole time. We must also seek feedback from our teachers or tutors about ways we can improve our work. 

Upon receiving feedback from our teachers or tutors, we can’t just stop there. We must also incorporate this feedback into our re-draft or finalised copy of the work. Any questions or confusion must be addressed during this stage so you know exactly what to do next time.

At LSG, we have high-quality tutors who have received the marks you’re after and can walk you through your high school English journey. 

What will we offer you?

• Regular English advice and support (whether that is homework help, essay feedback or if you just want to go the extra mile and get ahead with your English studies)
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Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller Rear Window was released nearly 65 years ago. Back then, Hitchcock was a controversial filmmaker just starting to make waves and build his influence in Hollywood; now, he is one of the most widely celebrated directors of the 20th century. At the time of its 1954 release, Rear Window emerged into a world freshly shaken by World War II. The fear of communism riddled American society and Cold War tensions were escalating between the two global superpowers, the USSR and USA. Traditional gender stereotypes and marital roles were beginning to be challenged, yet the ‘old way’ continued to prevail. The culture of the 1950s could hardly be more different to what it is today. Within the Western world, the birth of the 21st century has marked the decline of cemented expectations and since been replaced by social equality regardless of gender, sexual preference and age. So why , six decades after its original release and in a world where much of its content appears superficially outdated , do we still analyse the film Rear Window ?

Rear Window is a film primarily concerned with the events which L.B. (Jeff) Jefferies, a photographer incapacitated by an accident which broke his leg, observes from the window of his apartment. He spends his days watching the happenings of the Greenwich Village courtyard, which enables Jeff to peer into the apartments and lives of local residents. The curiosities which exist in such an intimate setting fulfil Jeff’s instinctual need to watch. The act of observing events from a secure distance is as tempting as reality television and magazines. To this day, these mediums provide entertainment tailored to popular culture. At its roots, Jeff’s role as a voyeur within Rear Window is designed to satisfy his intense boredom in a state of injury. As the film is seen through Jeff’s voyeuristic eyes, the audience become voyeurs within their own right. Until relations between Thorwald and his wife simmer into territory fraught with danger, Jeff’s actions are the harmless activities of a man searching for entertainment.

So, if Rear Window teaches us that voyeurism is a dangerous yet natural desire , does the film comment on the individuals who consent to being watched? Within Greenwich Village, Jeff’s chance to act as an observer is propelled by the indifference of those he observes. Almost without exception, his neighbours inadvertently permit Jeff’s eyes wandering into their apartments by leaving their blinds up. The private elements of others’ lives, including their domestic duties, marital relations and indecencies, are paraded before Jeff. Greenwich Village is his picture show and its residents willingly raise the stage’s curtains . This presentation of Hitchcock’s 1954 statement remains relevant today. Jeff’s neighbours’ consent to his intrusion into their lives bears striking similarities to current indifference. The prevalence of social media enables information to be gathered as soon as its users click the ‘Accept Terms & Conditions’ button. Rear Window is a commentary on social values and provokes its audience to examine habits of their own, especially in a world where sensitive information is at our fingertips. Just as Hitchcock’s 1954 characters invite perversive eyes to inspect their lives, society today is guilty of the same apathy .

The characters of Hitchcock’s thriller are a pivotal element of the film’s construction. They add layers of depth to the text and fulfil roles central to the plot’s development. One of Hitchcock’s fundamental directorial decisions was leaving multiple characters unnamed – within Greenwich Village alone, we meet Miss Lonelyhearts, Miss Torso and Miss Hearing Aid. The stereotypical nature of these labels, based on superficial traits that Jeff observes from his window, exemplifies the sexism prevalent in the 1950s. Jeff’s knowledge of these women is limited to such an extent that he does not know their names, yet considers himself qualified enough to develop labels for each of them. The historical background of stereotypes is imbedded within Rear Window and shares vast similarities with the stereotypes we recognise today.

Hitchcock’s 1954 thriller Rear Window portrays a little world that represents the larger one . Its themes, primarily voyeurism, and character profiles illustrate Hitchcock’s societal messages and provide a running commentary on issues which govern America during the 1950s. In the six decades since the film’s release, the Western world has undergone significant developments both socially and culturally. L.B (Jeff) Jefferies’ perception of women and married life is inconsistent with the relations between men and women that we observe today. Regardless, the timeless views that Hitchcock’s conveys through Rear Window continue to speak volumes about our society. Jeff’s voyeurism, which comprises much of the film’s major plotline, is a channel for Hitchcock to comment about the instinctual desire for individuals to observe others. Additionally, Hitchcock delves into the flip side of this matter, presenting the theory that those he watches are just as guilty of allowing his intrusion into their private lives. Apathetic mindsets in today’s digital world are responsible for the same indifference that Hitchcock explores within his film. Let’s not forget the sexist stereotypes that Jeff develops to label certain women within Greenwich Village. Miss Lonelyhearts, Miss Torso and Miss Hearing Aid are all victims of Jeff’s narrow mindset towards women, emphasised by these superficial and demeaning names. Stereotypes remain as apparent within society today as they were within the world of Rear Window and can be identified within the media’s diverse presentation of social issues. It is easy to assume that Hitchcock’s 1954 thriller, Rear Window , lacks the relevancy we expect from films. Contrary to this perception, its ingrained messages are fundamentally true to this day.

Here’s how to get ahead of this brand new VCE English Unit. 

What Is ‘Creating Texts’?

If you’re in Year 12 this year, chances are you will begin studying the Creating Texts Area of Study very soon (if you haven’t started already). This new AoS in the 2024 study design has essentially expanded and replaced the previous study design’s approach to creative writing, now placing a greater focus on the process of creating texts and embracing multiple forms of writing.

Here’s what the study design states the outcome of this unit is:

‘On completion of this unit the student should be able to demonstrate effective writing skills by producing their own texts, designed to respond to a specific context and audience to achieve a stated purpose; and to explain their decisions made through writing processes.’ (VCAA English Study Design, 2024-2027)

So, while before VCAA did not place a heavy focus on this unit, now it is heavily emphasised, being one of the three sections of the English exam. Now, more so than before, you are required to write – even if just a little bit – creatively.

Given that Creating Texts is now reflected in the end-of-year exam, it is very important to nail it. And to do that, you first need to know what this Area of Study is all about.

Framework of Ideas

A big part of this AoS is the Framework of Ideas , which provides students and, perhaps most importantly, schools, with thematic guides to encourage discussion and unique writing. The study design states:

‘ The Framework of Ideas presents four broad ideas through which students can engage with writing’. 

Here’s what they are, as directly taken from the study design:

• Writing about country: 'Exploration of place and belonging'

You can also explore ideas of one’s sense of national belonging, the climate crisis, colonisation and decolonisation, and different forms of cultural identities in relation to the land. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives can also be addressed.

• Writing about protest: 'Explorations of conflict and contest, what it means to protest, the value of protest, the outcomes of protest, personal stories of protest, struggle and war'

For this framework, you can dive deep into prominent figures who spearheaded social movements through protests, or you can look at protest more broadly and investigate its role and effectiveness within society, the history of protest and its many facets.

•   Writing about personal journeys: 'Explorations of ‘life’ or biographical explorations'

Ideas surrounding the importance of storytelling and personal change, and invitations for students to create autobiographical written pieces are also outlined in the study design.

•   Writing about play: 'Explorations of experiences and traditions of play and playing in many cultures and through history'

This framework also invites thought into how play intersects with technology, the role of play and make-believe in our daily lives, and even how performance and social media may influence how we view the world today.

NOTE: The study design also offers many other possible ways to explore these ideas, so make sure to check it out and read it carefully. It can be found HERE .

As you can see, the ideas within the frameworks are very broad. This was intentionally done, so that you have ample opportunity to find something within those ideas that engage you. Your school will choose only one of these frameworks, so you are in no way expected to dissect all four – that would be a huge undertaking!

Mentor Texts

There are also four mentor texts for each framework, which range from TED Talks, blog posts, short stories, speeches and argumentative articles, to name a few. Their purpose in the curriculum is to serve as examples of effective writing, as the selected texts show a competent understanding of context, purpose and audience , as well as confident use of textual features such as tone, vocabulary and authorial voice. This is similar to what you might have encountered in Year 11, where you were asked to read and analyse a range of creative texts to then inform your own writing.

When studying your mentor texts, make sure to keep all of this in mind and carefully analyse each text and what is successful about them in relation to your framework. This will make your life much easier when it comes to writing your own.

If you don’t feel very confident in creating texts or think these frameworks are very broad and hard to come up with good ideas for, just remember that you’re not going into this unit completely blind, neither are you expected to write completely from scratch.

Besides your experience last year, your given framework and mentor texts are there to provide a guide to effective writing and introduce you to many different ideas, so make sure to use them to your advantage! Besides, having more freedom in a creative writing task should definitely be viewed as a benefit rather than a hindrance. 

Oh No! Does This Mean I Have To Write a Narrative? 

No, it doesn’t! If the aforementioned formats of the mentor texts were any indication, this AoS encourages you to embrace the variety of different writing styles.

When before you might have been required to write within a narrative format or asked to ‘fill a gap’ in an already existing short story, now you have the freedom to write in whatever way you want, and it does not need to be a narrative, let alone fictional storytelling.

In the context of the Creating Texts AoS, ‘creative writing’ does not only equate to creating fictional characters, worlds and narratives. Instead, it gives way to the many other forms of writing that show off a writer’s creativity, which is not solely dependent on what is written, but also how and why the text has been written. This links back to the context, purpose and audience idea I talked about before.

The study design also heavily focuses on the process of writing and experimentation and not just the final draft. This AoS is your chance to fully immerse yourself in writing, so you should make sure to brainstorm and try new modes of writing you might not have thought of before. You might end up surprising yourself and coming up with great texts!

So, here’s a non-exhaustive list of writing styles you can choose to tackle:

• Your classic narrative or short story
• Argumentative article
• Transcript of a Podcast episode
• Poetry/Song (just remember you are not allowed to write in these formats for the Exam!)
• Reflective essay
• Biographical texts

You may find that, as you work through the unit, some formats may be more effective than others depending on your framework, chosen audience, chosen tone or even just your personal preference. For example, writing in a blog post format post would be more effective in engaging the particular audience of teens and young adults. 

Or, you may choose to convey your ideas with a specific tone in mind. For example, if you want to address your framework in an emotive way you might choose to write a first-person narrative short story. Conversely, if you want to address it in a rational and factual way, you might choose to write an article. 

That’s another reason why experimenting and trying new things is so important -  so that you can find out what, in your opinion, suits you and the framework best.

Check out our blog post on the Skeleton Approach for a suggestion of how you could potentially structure your Creative piece.

What Your SAC Will Look Like

This AoS is worth 60 of the 100 marks allocated for Unit 3, so it is a big deal. However, if you have a look at the study design, those 60 marks are split into three equal parts worth 20 marks each, which means your SAC will consist of three things:

‍ 1) ‘A written text constructed in consideration of audience, purpose and context.’ And, of course, your text will also need to be constructed in relation to your chosen framework.

2) ‘A written text constructed in consideration of audience, purpose and context.’ Yep, that’s right. For this SAC you have to create two distinct writing pieces. The assessment task as it is outlined in the study design does not mention whether they need to have completely different formats or audience/purpose/context from one another, so the specifics might be up to your school to decide.

3)   ‘A commentary reflecting on writing processes.’ This is the same as a Written Explanation , which you likely have come across before. This is where you write a couple of paragraphs outlining and justifying your choices for each written text you produced, especially in relation to your framework and your audience, purpose and context. Having a successful commentary means you clearly describe the authorial intent in your work, so make sure to be specific and self-analytical in your writing!

What the Exam Will Look Like

The 2024 English exam will be the first exam that follows the new 2024-2027 study design, and the biggest change between now and the previous years is that Section B, which used to ask students to write a Comparative Response to a set of texts they would have studied at school during the year, is now all about Creating Texts . So much so that now Section B is called – you guessed it – ‘Creating texts’.

VCAA has been kind enough to release a sample of this new requirement, which outlines very faithfully what this section will look like in the actual exam. The exam paper consists of a page of general instructions which apply to all students, and then four pages with three pieces of stimulus material each, which relate to each of the four frameworks.

The stimuli consist of one statement, an image, and a section of a poem/story, and the exam paper says you must use ‘at least one’ of them in your writing. (Here’s a quick tip: if the examiners are asking for at least one, use two or more.)

There is also a compulsory title given for each framework, which must be the title of your text.

The instructions in the VCAA sample exam also outline that in Section B ‘you must create one written text ( not including song, poetry or verse)’ , and that ’you must include meaningful connections with ideas drawn from one of the Frameworks of Ideas’ as well as the provided title and the stimulus material. You should choose the framework you have studied in depth at school to write about, and you are also able to refer to your mentor texts, although that is not compulsory in the exam.

Another point is that ‘you must develop your text with a clear purpose, incorporating at least one of the following: to explain, to express, to reflect, to argue.’

You may remember these purposes from the Unit 1 Crafting Texts Area of Study in Year 11. They are pretty much self-explanatory, and chances are that any writing you do will already serve one of these purposes without it being your conscious decision. Also, similar to the stimulus material, try to incorporate two purposes within your piece instead of just one, if possible.

And, as previously was the case as well, Section B is worth one-third of your full exam marks.

You can find the 2024 English sample exam and other very helpful resources such as past exams and exam reports by clicking HERE . 

Three Tips to Help You Ace Creating Texts

So, now that we know what Creating Texts is all about, here are three helpful tips to keep in mind as you make your way through this Area of Study:

1) Play to Your Strengths

As you experiment and become familiar with a range of writing styles and formats, you may find that you’ve become really good at writing argumentative essays, or you became more interested in writing short stories, or maybe you remember that in Year 11 you got a high mark for writing a strong reflective essay. Make sure to self-assess and keep in mind what your strengths are in writing, even if they might not be apparent at first glance.

Also remember that, in the exam, you have a very limited amount of time to come up with a unique piece of writing from scratch, so having a text format in mind that you feel really confident and comfortable writing with can provide at least a little bit of guidance and reassurance when you’re writing something new.

2) Choose Formats That Will Help You Show a Deep Understanding of Your Framework

For instance, if you have the ‘writing about play’ framework and you are deeply inspired by an example of how play can help people heal from trauma from one of your mentor texts which happens to be a memoir, you might deem it best to write a short story or a personal fictionalised diary entry which shows you have taken inspiration from that memoir’s central idea, but you are also engaging with the framework’s implications in society.

Of course, this should be judged on a case-by-case basis, but it can be a helpful guide if you feel stuck and unsure of where to start your writing process.

3) Be Flexible

This is especially important for the exam. You don’t want to walk in with a memorised text! Examiners can definitely tell when a student has just route-learned their way into essay writing, and this will undoubtedly be extra noticeable for creative texts, especially when the exam gives you no choice but to integrate their given stimulus material.

This is why becoming used to as many writing formats as possible, alongside consistent planning and brainstorming, are incredibly important skills to develop throughout the year, so that when it comes time to the end-of-year exam you are ready to go regardless of what the examiners throw at you!

The best way to succeed in this Unit, like pretty much all other tasks in English, is to consistently practice your writing and experiment with as many writing styles as you possibly can. Be open to new ways of thinking, not only about the framework you are given, but about the concept of writing itself! Although certainly challenging, the Creating Texts AoS can prove itself to be great fun. So, best of luck in creating texts, and happy writing!

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83 Much Ado About Nothing Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best much ado about nothing topic ideas & essay examples, 📌 most interesting much ado about nothing topics to write about, 👍 good research topics about much ado about nothing, ❓ much ado about nothing essay questions.

• Much Ado About Nothing By focusing on relationships, the author of the play highlights the impact of deception to unity, love and happiness. Due to the constant practice of deceit among the characters, Claudio believes that Don Pedro is […]
• Beatrice From Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” Even though the main plot of the story is centered on challenges threatening to sabotage the union Hero and Claudio, Beatrice along with Benedick with their constant verbal jousting finds itself quite an interesting counter-plot.
• Much Ado About Nothing by Shakespeare Claudio is desperate and agrees to marry a woman who is supposed to look like Hero and is the daughter of Leonato’s brother. Hero and Claudio’s storyline is also dedicated to the theme of love.
• The “Much Ado About Nothing” Play by W. Shakespeare The high school is home to two pairs of young lovers: Roberto and Gianna, the star athlete and the head cheerleader, and Sofia and Angelo, the school’s resident gossip and her sidekick.
• ‘Much Ado About Nothing’: Self-Awareness and Respect in Relationships However, in the drama of that period, there is a noticeable discrepancy between the frequency of jokes and the rarity of adultery.
• A Minor Character in “Much Ado About Nothing” by Shakespeare The first couple is Claudio, a lord and close friend of Prince of Aragon Don Pedro, and Hero, daughter of Leonato, governor of Messina. Don John, the brother of Don Pedro, plays a prominent role […]
• True Comedy: Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” One of the features of comedy of identity is the existent of a plot that is based on dialogue and not actions.
• “Much Ado About Nothing” the Film by Kenneth Branagh Benedick is an in depth character and he plays a key role in the movie in a variety of ways. Benedick was unmasked when he overheard Leonato, Don Pedro and Claudio in the garden talking […]
• “Much Ado About Nothing” and “The Book of Ruth” The difference between the two women appears to be that while Ruth is an active maker and creator of her destiny, Hero more passively suffers her misfortunes and allows other people to devise schemes that […]
• “Much Ado About Nothing” by William Shakespeare In the comedy, a woman was falsely accused of infidelity, and the role of the “unfaithful woman” was represented by Hero.
• The Themes of Appearance Versus True Love in William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing”
• Trickery and Deception in “Much Ado About Nothing”
• Uses of Pairs in “Much Ado About Nothing” and “The Taming of the Shrew” by William Shakespeare
• Using the Plays “Much Ado About Nothing” and “The Rover”
• The Violence of Language in “Much Ado About Nothing” by William Shakespeare
• The Masked Dance in “Much Ado About Nothing” by William Shakespeare
• The Numeraire Problem in General Equilibrium Models With Market Power: “Much Ado About Nothing”
• The Themes of Noting and Deception in “Much Ado About Nothing”
• The Nature of Shakespearean Gossip in “Much Ado About Nothing”
• To What Extent Is “Much Ado About Nothing” Seen as a Satire
• William Shakespeare’s Presentation of the Two Pairs of Lovers in “Much Ado About Nothing”
• The Role of Romantic Love in the Plot of Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing”
• The Slandering of Hero in “Much Ado About Nothing” by William Shakespeare
• The Literary Devices and Techniques in “Much Ado About Nothing”
• The Recurring Theme of Conflict in Relationships Throughout “Much Ado About Nothing,” “Wuthering Heights,” and “A Streetcar Named Desire”
• The Issue of Status in “Much Ado About Nothing” by William Shakespeare
• The Use of Eavesdropping in William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing”
• The Relationship of Beatrice and Benedick in “Much Ado About Nothing”
• The Similarities Between the Characters Katharina and Beatrice in “Much Ado About Nothing”
• Similarities and Differences in “The Merchant of Venice,” “Much Ado About Nothing,” “The Taming of the Shrew”
• The Styles of Remembering and Deceptiveness in “Much Ado About Nothing”
• The Succes of Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing”
• William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing,” “The Taming of the Shrew” and Women’s Social Status
• The Story of Love in Shakespeare’s Comedy “Much Ado About Nothing”
• The Transformation of Benedict in “Much Ado About Nothing”
• The Similar Characters of Katharina in “The Taming of the Shrew” and Beatrice in “Much Ado About Nothing”
• The Presents Love and Romance in “Much Ado About Nothing”
• Viola and Beatrice in “Twelfth Night” and “Much Ado About Nothing”
• The Presentation of the Relationship Between Beatrice and Benedick in Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing”
• “Much Ado About Nothing” and “Lysistrata” on the Societies
• The Schemes and Tricks in “Much Ado About Nothing” by William Shakespeare
• Women and the Patriarchal Society in “Much Ado About Nothing”
• The Presentation of the Characters Beatrice and Hero in “Much Ado About Nothing”
• Villains in “Much Ado About Nothing” and “Othello”
• The Most Appealing Romantic Relationship in “Much Ado About Nothing” by William Shakespeare
• The Message in “Much Ado About Nothing” by William Shakespeare
• Pride, Deception and Fear as the Obstacle for Love in “Much Ado About Nothing”
• The Theme of Betrayal in “Much Ado About Nothing” by William Shakespeare
• The Theme of Deception in “Much Ado About Nothing” by William Shakespeare
• Women in “Much Ado About Nothing” and “The Taming of the Shrew” by William Shakespeare
• The Masterful Use of Deception in “Much Ado About Nothing” by William Shakespeare
• What Makes “Much Ado About Nothing” a Timeless Piece of Literature?
• How Does Shakespeare Present Claudio’s Character in “Much Ado About Nothing”?
• What Act Is the Climax in “Much Ado About Nothing”?
• How Does Shakespeare Present Relationship Difficulties in “Much Ado About Nothing”?
• How Effectively Are Women Presented in “Much Ado About Nothing”?
• How Does Shakespeare Maintain the Balance Between Seriousness and Comedy in the Play “Much Ado About Nothing”?
• What Do Horns Represent in “Much Ado About Nothing”?
• How Does Shakespeare Present Marriage in “Much Ado About Nothing”?
• What Is the Central Message of “Much Ado About Nothing”?
• How Shakespeare Dramatically Presents Power and Authority in the Relationship Between Men and Women in “Much Ado About Nothing”?
• How Does Shakespeare Explore the Theme of Love in “Much Ado About Nothing”?
• Why Is Don John Jealous of Don Pedro in “Much Ado About Nothing”?
• How Does Shakespeare Portray Women in “Much Ado About Nothing”?
• How Are the Negative and Positive Impacts of Love Explored Using Various Main Characters in “Much Ado About Nothing”?
• What Is Shakespeare’s Play “Much Ado About Nothing” About?
• How Shakespeare Presents Women in “Macbeth” and “Much Ado About Nothing”?
• What Does “Much Ado About Nothing” Teach?
• What Does “Much Ado About Nothing” Reveal to?
• Why Does Shakespeare Require Two Pairs of Lovers in “Much Ado About Nothing”?
• What Play Is “Much Ado About Nothing” Based on?
• How Does Shakespeare Represent Same-Sex and Opposite-Sex Relationships in “Much Ado About Nothing” and “Twelfth Night”?
• How Does “Much Ado About Nothing” Uses the Comic Genre?
• Why Was Branagh’s “Much Ado About Nothing” Not an Accurate Text Representation?
• How Is “Much Ado About Nothing” Tragic?
• How Did Shakespeare Creates the Character of Benedick in “Much Ado About Nothing”?
• What Is the Conflict in “Much Ado About Nothing”?
• How Does Shakespeare Use Deception to Structure the Plot in “Much Ado About Nothing”?
• Is Marriage More Important Than Love in “Much Ado About Nothing”?
• How Shakespeare Develops the Relationship Between Benedick and Beatrice in “Much Ado About Nothing”?
• What Is the Most Critical Scene in “Much Ado About Nothing”?
• Taming of the Shrew Topics
• Othello Titles
• The Tempest Essay Ideas
• A Streetcar Named Desire Titles
• Death of a Salesman Ideas
• The Glass Menagerie Paper Topics
• Beowulf Titles
• Paradise Lost Ideas
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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1. Shakespeare ( AQA GCSE English Literature )

Revision note, much ado about nothing: overview.

The Much Ado About Nothing question is part of Paper 1, Section A of your GCSE. For this, you are required to write one essay-length answer to one set question. This can seem daunting at first, but this page contains some helpful information and links to more detailed revision note pages that will enable you to aim for the highest grade. This page includes:

• A summary of Much Ado About Nothing
• A brief overview of what is required in the exam

Much Ado About Nothing characters

Much Ado About Nothing context

Much Ado About Nothing themes

Much Ado About Nothing quotes

• Top tips for the highest grade

Much Ado About Nothing summary

Much Ado About Nothing is a romantic comedy written by Shakespeare in the late 1590s. It deals with love, deception and mistaken identity. 

Returning from battle, Don Pedro arrives at the house of Leonato with his men, including Claudio and Benedick. Claudio falls in love with Hero, Leonato’s daughter, and their marriage is agreed upon.

Benedick and Hero’s cousin, Beatrice, both despise love and engage in witty banter with each other. The others plot to make them fall in love with each other. Don Pedro’s illegitimate brother, Don John, contrives with his servant, Borachio, to spoil Claudio and Hero’s wedding by arranging for Claudio and Don Pedro to witness Borachio seducing Hero’s maid Margaret at Hero’s bedroom window. Mistaking Margaret to be Hero, Claudio believes he has been betrayed.

Claudio rejects Hero at the altar, but Friar Francis is convinced of Hero’s innocence and persuades Leonato to pretend that Hero is dead in order to give them time to clear her name. The nightwatchmen overhear a drunken Borachio confessing to the deception and the plot is exposed. When he hears of Hero’s innocence, Claudio, believing her to be dead, promises to make amends by agreeing to marry a cousin of Hero’s in her place. At the wedding, the bride is unmasked to be Hero herself. She and Claudio are married, and Beatrice and Benedick also confess their love for each other and agree to marry.

For a more detailed summary, please see the Much Ado About Nothing: Plot Summary page.

How is Much Ado About Nothing assessed in the exam?

• Your GCSE Paper 1 requires you to answer two questions in 1hr 45min. That means you have approximately 52 minutes to plan, write and check your Much Ado About Nothing essay
• Paper 1 is worth 64 marks and accounts for 40% of your overall GCSE grade
• The Much Ado About Nothing essay is worth 34 marks in total, because it also includes 4 marks for AO4 (spelling, punctuation and grammar)
• The Much Ado About Nothing question is in Section A of Paper 1 and you are required to answer the one available question on the play
• Your question will also include a printed extract of about 25 lines from the play
• It is a closed-book exam, which means you will not have access to a copy of the text (other than the printed extract) in your exam
• The question will require you to analyse and write in detail about an aspect of Much Ado About Nothing
• Your answer will need to address both the extract from the play that you will be given, and the play as a whole

For a much more detailed guide on answering the Much Ado About Nothing question, please see our revision notes on How to Answer the Shakespeare Essay Question .

The characters you should focus on when revising Much Ado About Nothing are:

When considering a Shakespeare play or any other text, it is crucial to remember that characters are intentionally crafted by the writer to serve a specific purpose. In many cases, these characters embody certain concepts or beliefs, and the writer, such as Shakespeare, uses them to reflect on and examine these ideas. For more details on how Shakespeare uses his characters in Much Ado About Nothing, please see the Much Ado About Nothing: Characters revision notes page. [insert link] 

Understanding what context actually is can be tricky at GCSE. Examiners understand context not as historical information or biographical facts about a writer, but as the ideas and perspectives explored by a writer through their text. Therefore, the Much Ado About Nothing context you should explore in your essay response is not information about Messina, or facts about William Shakespeare, but ideas about:

• Gender Roles
• Honour and Virtue
• Harmony and Discord

Lots of these ideas and perspectives are universal, so your own opinions of them are valid and will be rewarded in an exam. For a detailed breakdown of the contextual topics listed above, see the Much Ado About Nothing: Context page

Understanding the themes that Shakespeare explores in Much Ado About Nothing is one of the best approaches any student can take when revising the play. This is because to get the highest mark on your exam, you need to take what examiners call a “conceptualised approach”: a detailed and perceptive exploration of Shakespeare’s ideas and intentions. The main themes explored by Shakespeare in Much Ado About Nothing are:

• Gender Roles and Attitudes

Shakespeare explores numerous other themes in Much Ado About Nothing beyond those mentioned above and you are encouraged to examine these themes as well. However, the above list makes a great place to start and detailed breakdowns of each of these themes can be found on the Much Ado About Nothing: Themes page

Although you are given credit for including quotations from Much Ado About Nothing in your answer, it is not a requirement of the exam. In fact, examiners say that “references” to the rest of the play are just as valid as direct quotations: this is when students pinpoint individual moments in the play, rather than quoting what the characters say. In order to select references really successfully, it is extremely important that you know the play itself very well, including the order of the events that take place in the play. This detailed act-by-act breakdown [insert link] of the plot will help you to revise the chronology of Much Ado About Nothing.

However, it can also be useful to revise a few – very well selected – quotations from the play that can be used in a variety of essays on different themes and characters. Luckily, we have made that selection for you! For a ‘translation’ and detailed analysis of each of these quotations, see the Much Ado About Nothing: Key Quotations  page.

Top Tips for the Highest Grade

Please see our revision pages on the Shakespeare exam for guides on:

• Structuring the Much Ado About Nothing essay  
• Much Ado About Nothing methods and techniques  
• How to include context in the Much Ado About Nothing essay
• Understanding the Much Ado About Nothing mark scheme  
• A Shakespeare model answer

Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Plays — Much Ado About Nothing

Essays on Much Ado About Nothing

Prompt examples for "much ado about nothing" essays, deception and miscommunication.

Discuss the theme of deception and miscommunication in "Much Ado About Nothing." How do misunderstandings and false appearances drive the plot, and what are the consequences of these deceptions?

Love and Relationships

Analyze the various relationships and forms of love in the play. How do characters like Beatrice and Benedick, Hero and Claudio, and others experience and express love, and how do their relationships evolve?

Gender Roles and Stereotypes

Examine the portrayal of gender roles and stereotypes in "Much Ado About Nothing." How do characters conform to or challenge traditional gender norms, and what commentary does the play offer on gender dynamics?

Humor and Wit

Discuss the use of humor and wit in the play. How do characters employ clever wordplay, puns, and humor to engage and entertain the audience, and what is the significance of humor in the story?

Conflict and Resolution

Analyze the conflicts that arise in the play and how they are ultimately resolved. What role does forgiveness and reconciliation play in the resolution of misunderstandings and disputes?

Themes of Honor and Reputation

Explore the themes of honor and reputation in "Much Ado About Nothing." How do characters' actions and choices affect their social standing and reputation, and what does the play convey about the value placed on honor in society?

Dramatic Irony in Much Ado About Nothing

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Deception in William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing

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Female Heroines in The Much Ado About Nothing

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Antagonistic Relations Between Benedick and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing

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1598-1599, William Shakespeare

The play revolves around two romantic pairings that emerge when a group of soldiers arrive in the town. The first, between Claudio and Hero, is nearly altered by the accusations of the villain, Don John. The second romance, between Claudio's friend Benedick and Hero's cousin Beatrice, takes centre stage as the play goes on, with both characters' wit and banter providing much of the humour. Through "noting" (sounding like "nothing", and meaning gossip, rumour, overhearing), Benedick and Beatrice are tricked into confessing their love for each other, and Claudio is tricked into believing that Hero is not a maiden (virgin).

The play takes an ancient theme — that of a woman falsely accused of unfaithfulness — to brilliant comedic heights. Other important themes include gender roles, infidelity, deception, masks and mistaken identity, "nothing",

Benedick, Beatrice, Don Pedro, Don John, Claudio, Leonato, Antonio, Balthasar, Borachio, Conrade, Innogen, Hero, Margaret, Ursula, Dogberry, Verges, Friar Francis

Shakespeare used as his main source for the Claudio-Hero plot a story from Matteo Bandello’s Novelle (1554–73); he also may have consulted Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando furioso and Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene. The Beatrice-Benedick plot is essentially Shakespeare’s own, though he must have had in mind his own story of wife taming in The Taming of the Shrew.

“I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man swear he loves me.” “Let me be that I am and seek not to alter me.” “Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.” “For which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?”

1. Shakespeare, W. (2019). Much ado about nothing. In One-Hour Shakespeare (pp. 147-206). Routledge. (https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429262630-9/much-ado-nothing-william-shakespeare) 2. Jorgensen, P. A. (1954). Much ado about nothing. Shakespeare Quarterly, 5(3), 287-295. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2866334) 3. Straznicky, M. (1994). Shakespeare and the Government of Comedy:" Much Ado About Nothing". Shakespeare Studies, 22, 141. (https://www.proquest.com/docview/1297960936?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true) 4. Cairncross, A. S. (1976). Shakespeare and Ariosto: Much Ado About Nothing, King Lear, and Othello. Renaissance Quarterly, 29(2), 178-182. (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/renaissance-quarterly/article/abs/shakespeare-and-ariosto-much-ado-about-nothing-king-lear-and-othello/25484DAC0A82A83B0092952411F3A7AF) 5. Suzuki, M. (2016). Gender, Class, and the Ideology of Comic Form: Much Ado About Nothing and Twelfth Night. A Feminist Companion to Shakespeare, 137-161. (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118501221.ch7) 6. Clegg, C. S. (2007). Truth, Lies, and the Law of Slander in Much Ado About Nothing. The Law in Shakespeare, 167-188. (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230626348_10) 7. Mueller, M. (1994). Shakespeare's Sleeping Beauties: The Sources of" Much Ado about Nothing" and the Play of Their Repetitions. Modern philology, 91(3), 288-311. (https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/392169?journalCode=mp) 8. Wright, N. E. (2006). Legal Interpretation of Defamation in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. Ben Jonson Journal, 13(1), 93-108. (https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/bjj.2006.13.1.9?journalCode=bjj)

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Much Ado About Nothing

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Write a scene from Beatrice and Benedick’s backstory. What do you think happened between them the first time they fell in love? Draw evidence from their dialogue in Acts I and II to reconstruct their original love affair.

Don Pedro is an enigmatic figure. He is involved in the action of the plot, but also ends the play “sad” and alone. Imagine that you are playing the part of Don Pedro in a production of Much Ado About Nothing , and write an analysis of his character that explains his behavior. Why, for instance, does he offer to woo Hero for Claudio? How sincere is his proposal to Beatrice?

Why might Shakespeare have written Don John as such a broad, cartoonish villain? What purpose does his scheming serve, and how would the play work differently if he were a more rounded character? How does he compare to Borachio, who helps with his schemes but also feels guilt and regret?

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Much Ado About Nothing

Shakespeare’s use of parallel characters in much ado about nothing        amelia coen 11th grade.

A key element in Shakespearian comedy is the use of parallel characters; Shakespeare invites the audience to compare and contrast, often using characterization and language to highlight the similarities and differences between the characters in the play. In particular, Shakespeare draws attention to these parallels to track character development, as often demonstrated through Beatrice and Benedick. Misunderstandings between the characters are a common occurrence within comedy, often revolving around the antagonist of the play. In Much Ado About Nothing , Shakespeare uses contrasting characters to highlight these misunderstandings, enhancing the overall comic structure of the play. It is speculated whether this use of parallel characters is solely to entertain or whether Shakespeare attempts to convey serious concerns through a representation of the hierarchical society within the play. This essay will argue that Shakespeare often invites the audience to compare and contrast gender stereotypes to benefit the comic atmosphere surrounding the romantic plots, whilst simultaneously satirizing a commonly-held view of Elizabethan women.

One major concern that Shakespeare comments on through his use of parallel characters is the idea of...

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Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare Essay Questions

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Enhance your ELA or Literature curriculum with our comprehensive resource tailored for Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare. This digital download features 15 thought-provoking essay questions—perfect for homework, assessments, class discussions, and more. Foster critical thinking and analytical skills while aiding students in exploring themes, characters, and plot intricacies of this enchanting play. Elevate your literature lessons with this engaging resource. Download now to inspire deep analysis and understanding in your classroom!

The download includes the following:

★ A list of all 15 essay questions

★ Individual handouts for each question where students can plan or write their essays

★ An editable Google Slides presentation with all 15 questions

Some examples of the essay questions include:

➤ Compare and contrast the courtship of Claudio and Hero with that of Benedick and Beatrice. How do their relationships develop differently throughout the play?

➤ Who is the protagonist of Much Ado About Nothing? Support your answer with evidence from the play.

➤ What elements of Much Ado About Nothing categorize it as a comedy? Discuss the role of misunderstandings, witty dialogue, and resolution in creating comedic effects.

Due to the range of questions, students can choose their own challenge or you can select questions to differentiate for students of different levels. Don't miss out on this valuable resource for teaching Much Ado About Nothing in your English language arts or literature classroom.

If you are looking for more resources for Much Ado About Nothing , then check out:

★ Much Ado About Nothing Roll the Dice Discussion Board ★ Much Ado About Nothing Word Search ★ Much Ado About Nothing Post-Reading Creative Tasks

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