Shakespeare blog post 3

There are many examples of dramatic irony in Much Ado About Nothing. For example in Act 2 scene 1, Don Pedro is putting the moves on Hero so that she and Claudio will marry. All of us in the audience knows Don Pedro is doing some serious trickery, but Hero has no idea. There are other, larger instances of dramatic irony, as we saw in act 2 scene 3 where Benedick is tricked by Pedro, Claudio and Leonato into believing that Beatrice is in love with him, and so he falls in love  with Beatrice. In act 3 scene 1, Beatrice is tricked by Hero and Ursula into believing that Benedick is in love with her, which at this point is not entirely untrue. In these scenes, Benedick and Beatrice are getting tricked by Don Pedro as he hatches his ultimate plan to get the two to fall in love. We all know that Pedro is matchmaking, as he points out that Benedick is hiding in a bush, and proceeds to ask Leonato about the “fact” that Beatrice is madly in love with Benedick. Leonato and Claudio were either previously informed of Don Pedro’s little idea, or they just took the joke and rolled with it. Either way, it worked fabulously. Hero and Ursula then played the same joke on Beatrice, and she proceeded to fall in love with Benedick. As all this happens, we know that Don Pedro is playing a intricately designed game of matchmaker, and Benedick and Beatrice being none the wiser. Next, it is Pedro’s turn to get bamboozled, as in act 4 scene 1 after Hero has been shamed, the friar hatches a plot of his own to get Claudio married to Hero. We know that Hero is pretending to be dead, but Claudio and Pedro don’t. From this, Claudio and Hero get remarried, John gets captured, and everyone lives happily ever after, well, except John. There are many examples of dramatic irony in this play, these are just a few examples.