ipl-logo

Irony In Charlie Chaplin's Much Ado About Nothing

658 Words3 Pages

"A day without laughter is a day wasted," said famous silent actor Charlie Chaplin. When reading Much Ado About Nothing, the reader is going to have a wasted day for sure. William Shakespeare attempts to make the play a comedy, but simply has too much serious issues, such as lying and swapping identities. The play also suffers from reusing the same character for the same kind of joke, and also having many stereotypes. This play is not a comedy, but rather a drama/romance with very poorly written "comedy".

The Shakespearian play, Much Ado About Nothing, was intended to be a comedy, but does not live up to this title for a variety of reasons. Instead of a comedy, this play strikes the audience as a romance/drama that has themes such as lying, …show more content…

Unfortunately for Much Ado About Nothing, these traits don 't lead to a good comedy. An example of characters swapping identities and lying is used when Borachio is on a balcony "shaking hands" with "Hero"(really Margaret). Seeing this causes Claudio, who is set to marry Hero in a few weeks, to publicly shame Hero at their wedding. After Hero did get shamed by Claudio, she fainted and and everyone thought that she was dead. All of this was caused by Don John, who set up Claudio to see all of this. So what is funny about this? Does a story full of this trickery and death make people laugh?" Not many people do laugh. Only people with twisted minds can even come up with this idea would think that it is …show more content…

Actually, most characters in the play are stereotypes. For example, Claudio and Hero represent the young and dumb side of love. They are quick to separate from each other; Claudio saw Borachio and Margaret "shaking hands” in the balcony, and also easily get back together when Hero revealed that she was not dead, Claudio instantly marries her. Another stereotype in Much Ado About Nothing is Dogberry, who is the bumbling cop. We have seen plenty of bumbling cops like Thompson and Thomson from Tintin, Chief Wiggum from the Simpsons and The Keystone Cops from comedy movies in the 1920s. Since Much Ado About Nothing was written in the late 1500s, the stereotype then was probably new, but now that it 's the 21st century, many readers will recognize these stereotypes and they won 't be

Open Document