Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Reading Question

  1. Find three examples of dramatic irony in the play. Explain what is going on during these scenes and why you believe that these are examples of dramatic irony. Please include a page number.
In the book Much Ado About Nothing, there are many cases of dramatic irony present. I am going to talk about three of them that really stood out to me. The first example is on page 20, when Hero starts talking to Don Pedro. In this scene, Don Pedro is masked and pretending to be Claudio so that he can pick Hero up for Claudio. The entire audience knows that the person pretending to be Claudio is actually Don Pedro, but Hero is none the wiser. Another example is on page 22, when Benedick is talking to Beatrice. The result is reversed here though, as though Benedick is the one with the mask on, Beatrice knows it is him and it is Benedick that believes that Beatrice knows not who he is. I found this situation a bit more complicated but equally interesting. My third example is on page 48, and is when Claudio learns of Hero being "disloyal" by supposedly having sex with someone else before their wedding. In this situation though, the audience knows that Don John is actually lying and trying to ruin the wedding. I found this scene to be very important to the plot of the play and heavily represents the importance of dramatic irony to the plot of comedy like this.

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