Much Ado About Nothing Spoken Language

In Much Ado About Nothing, by William Shakespeare, spoken language does not depict the characters’ real feelings, while silence and action better express them. At the beginning of the play, Claudio accused Hero of cheating on him. Soon after, Hero was presumed dead, and Claudio found out he had been mistaken in his accusation. Amidst this, Beatrice discussed how people talk instead of act. She talks about the ways she would do things differently. Through this disorder, Shakespeare shows that words can be weaponized through lies, which suggests that silence is more likely to contain the truth.

Words are powerful, primarily when spoken by influential people, because society tends to trust them. When influential people spread lies, they cause

He wrote an epitaph on her grave, expressing his sorrow for her. Claudio understood that Hero was not in the wrong and that her death was unjust. In the epitaph, Claudio wrote that Hero was “done to death by slanderous tongues.” (p.96, lines 3-11) Similar to words in society, the “slanderous tongues” dealt enough shame to make Hero want to die. The shame affected Hero enough that she supposedly killed herself; the epitaph gets toward the idea of words killing in the same way humans use weapons. The “slanderous tongues” can affect anyone, no matter their power. Silence is not good enough to protect yourself; this was especially shown with Hero. She could not fight the rumors and defend herself by not saying anything. Similar to how you need a sword to fight in a battle. We see something very different concerning silence later in the epitaph Claudio

This is shown during the mask party at the beginning of the play. Beatrice, the friend of both Claudio and Hero, wanted them to talk to each other, and the two confessed their love for one another. After speaking for a while, Beatrice wanted one of them to make the first move. As Claudio was talking, Beatrice told Hero to “stop his mouth with a kiss, and let him not speak, neither.” (p.27, lines 288-299) The kiss stopped Claudio from speaking, forcing out the truth, not nonsensical words. The words wouldn’t let Hero or Claudio show their genuine emotion. They wouldn't let them express the true extent of their love. Beatrice knew that Claudio’s words were meaningless; he meant best when is “not speak[ing].” Claudio also knows speaking is not real and “silence is the perfect herald of joy.” (p.27, line 284) Even if the words they said were positive, they acted as weapons because they held back the purest form of thoughts and emotions. The words ruin the real feeling of being in the moment, being weapons toward each other and ourselves. When the words need to be “stopped,” it shows that speaking does more harm than good. The silence allows for a more nuanced expression of emotion than language. It is hard to express the magnitude of feelings through words