Shakespeare - Much Ado about Nothing - Characters

There are many characters in Shakespeare’s play Much Ado About Nothing. Take an in-depth look at the main ones identifying their key attributes and relationships and analysing their part in the play.

The characters in this play mostly belong to Leonato’s family and household. In addition, there are Leonato’s guests: Don Pedro - the Prince of Aragon - and his soldiers. Extra laughs are provided by Dogberry and the night-watchmen.

The four main characters in the play are:

• Beatrice
• Benedick
• Claudio
• Don John

Beatrice is Leonato’s niece and Hero’s cousin. She is clever, funny, and very sharp. She likes to play with words. She doesn’t have a boyfriend and says she doesn’t want one either. Men seem to find her a bit scary. Benedick is her sparring partner. They may have had a romantic link in the past that turned sour. The rest of the characters set Beatrice up with Benedick and she willingly falls for him. She is strong-willed, passionate and defends her cousin’s honour when everyone else abandons Hero.

• Sharp-tongued – she verbally battles with Benedick, insulting him with her clever use of words.
• Happily single – she rejects love and rejects all offers of love, including Don Pedro’s casual suggestion that they should get married. She can’t get Benedick out of her heart or head, however.
• Fiercely loyal – she is the only character that really stands up for Hero, and wishes that she were a man so that she could do more to defend her cousin’s honour.

Friends and enemies

Beatrice’s friends are:

• Hero - her cousin, to whom she is like an older sister
• Benedick – eventually

Her enemy is:

• Claudio - towards the end she wants him killed for injuring Hero

Changes in character

• Beatrice appears to hate Benedick, but falls rapidly in love with him when she thinks he loves her.
• She is quick-tongued and argumentative throughout. At the beginning of the play her arguments seem bitter, but at the end they become playful banter instead.
• Beatrice spends most of the play being more independent than a woman should be in the Elizabethan era – she refuses to marry, is cheeky to her uncle and wishes she was a man to challenge Claudio. At the end of the play she agrees to marry – but she keeps up her independent streak, still pretending not to be madly in love with Benedick.

In Act 1 Scene 1, Beatrice and Benedick are having a "merry war of words". It is the first time they have seen each other for a while, but Beatrice comments to herself, "I know you of old", suggesting that they may have had a romantic link in the past.

Benedick is an experienced soldier, a man’s man who has no time for romance. He prefers the company of men and claims that he will never get married. It doesn’t take much to make him fall in love with Beatrice when the other characters trick him into thinking that Beatrice is pining away with love for him. He is the only male character, apart from the priest, who believes in Hero when she is wrongly accused of being unfaithful. He is sincere in his love for Beatrice and proves that he will do anything to make her happy.

• Stubborn – he refuses to talk sensibly to Claudio about Hero, and no matter what Don Pedro and Claudio say, Benedick refuses to see himself as a married man… until the end.
• A sworn bachelor – confusingly, he is the perfect match for Beatrice who also sees herself as a lifelong singleton.
• Heroic – Benedick defends Hero’s honour. He pledges his love to Beatrice in a moving and heroic way. He even promises to kill his friend to please her.

Benedick’s friends are:

• Don Pedro – his brother-in-arms
• Claudio - his brother-in-arms
• Beatrice – eventually

Benedick’s enemies are:

• Don John – Don Pedro’s nasty brother

• Benedick begins as a determined bachelor but ends up happily married to a woman he loves.
• He starts off as being Claudio’s best friend, but when Claudio accuses Hero, Benedick believes her, not him. When Beatrice asks, he even challenges Claudio to a duel.
• Benedick’s changes can be quite funny: he starts out complaining about music being too soppy, and ends up writing terrible love poetry to Beatrice.

Did you know? When the play was written, “nothing” may have sometimes been pronounced "noting", so there is a play on words in the title. The story is a fuss about nothing, but also about the chaos caused by what people "note", ie notice and make assumptions about.

In Act 2 Scene 3, the other characters have tricked Benedick into believing that Beatrice is in love with him.

Claudio comes back from battle with medals and the prince’s favour. This annoys Don John who sets out to wreck his life. Claudio decides that he will marry Hero. He thinks she is pretty, but he doesn’t really know her. He is young and inexperienced with women. When Don John begins to cause trouble for him, we see a different side to his character. He can be petty, jealous and easily deceived. Claudio is easily led, but also keen to save his own face at the cost of everyone else. At the end, he thinks that he is marrying Hero’s cousin, but to his surprise and delight, he is given a second chance with Hero.

• Inexperienced – Claudio asks Benedick for his opinion on Hero. Don Pedro chats Hero up for him.
• Jealous – Don John finds it easy to wind Claudio up. First of all, Claudio thinks that Don Pedro has taken Hero off him. Later, he mistakes Margaret for Hero, with Borachio.
• Impulsive – Claudio ruins Hero’s reputation publicly when he believes that she has been unfaithful.

Claudio’s friends are:

• Don Pedro – his prince, who is also deceived by Don John
• Benedick – his best friend, who he almost loses

He is enemies with:

• Don John – his biggest enemy

• Claudio initially appears to be a romantic hero, a brave soldier who falls in love with the beautiful girl. But the way he treats Hero when he is deceived by Don John makes him lose this romantic status. He just about recovers our sympathy in his sorrow when Hero ‘dies’ and is proved innocent. Claudio is best friends with Benedick, and loyal to Don Pedro, his prince. But he is easily tricked into sulking with Don Pedro when he thinks he’s stolen his girl. Benedick stops being friends with Claudio when he accuses Hero.

• Claudio is easily deceived because he is very jealous about Hero. Towards the end he realises she is completely innocent.

Listening task

In Act 4 Scene 1, the wedding of Claudio and Hero is about to begin. Hero and her family are blissfully unaware that Claudio and Don Pedro have come to publicly shame her (they think they saw Hero kissing Borachio in her bedroom window, but in reality it was Borachio and Margaret).

Don John is Don Pedro’s half-brother; they share a father. His mum and dad weren’t married when he was born. They are both princes – that’s what ‘Don’ means – but because Don John is not the legitimate son, he can never inherit his father’s land, and his brother will always rule over him. This probably is what makes him so grumpy. He dislikes Claudio because his brother likes him so much. He tries to ruin things for Claudio for fun, and Claudio’s jealous personality makes it easy for him.

Did you know? Don John is a character type called a malcontent. Dissatisfied with life and everyone around him, he delights in making the world a rotten place for all of the other characters, too. Other malcontents in Shakespeare’s plays include Iago in Othello, Hamlet and Richard III.

• Jealous – Don John hates Claudio because everything seems to be going right for him. He also holds a grudge against him for the part he played in Don John’s recent downfall.
• Anti-social – The other characters in the play find his company uncomfortable.
• Two-faced – Incredibly, Don Pedro and Claudio fall for Don John’s lies. He must be a convincing liar, because the audience know what a villain he is.

Friends, family and enemies

Don John is friends with:

• Conrade
• Borachio

His relatives include:

• Don Pedro – his brother

He is enemies with:

• Claudio

• Don John does not change in reality through the play – but what the other characters think he is, does change. In the beginning Don John is openly hostile. His friend Conrade advises him to try and hide his feelings. He takes the advice and seems quite helpful to Claudio and Don Pedro. Don John delights in ruining the wedding and watching the groom publicly destroy the bride’s reputation. But he hides it, and almost manages to escape.

In Act 1 Scene 3, Don John is in a very bad mood. His friend Conrade tells him to try and hide his hostility, but Don John explains that he can’t help himself. It’s just the way he is and no one should try to change him.

Don Pedro
Don Pedro is the Prince of Aragon. He is a guest at Leonato’s house having recently returned from battle. He has had some trouble with his half-brother, Don John. Don Pedro proposes to Beatrice, but she doesn’t take him seriously. He challenges the other characters to set Beatrice and Benedick up before the week is over.

At the very end of the play, Benedick advises the prince to:

BENEDICK
Get thee a wife, get thee a wife

Act 5 Scene 4

Character attributes

• Charming
• Single

Borachio
Borachio’s name means drunkard. He is Don John’s henchman and enjoys playing a mean trick on Claudio, but is sorry when he is arrested and learns how devastating the results are for Hero. He seems to do well with the ladies, Margaret in particular.

Just before he is arrested, Borachio gleefully tells Conrade:

BORACHIO
I will, like a true drunkard, utter all to thee.

Act 3 Scene 3

Character attributes
-Dishonest-Boastful

Conrade
Conrade is Don John’s henchman. He advises Don John not to show his true feelings so clearly. Later, he gets arrested when Borachio is boasting about his part in Hero’s downfall.

In Act 1 Scene 3, Don John tells him not to give out advice when he’s as miserable as Conrade is:

DON JOHN
I wonder that thou (being as thou sayest thou art, born under Saturn) goest about to apply a moral medicine to a mortifying mischief.

Act 1 Scene 3

Character attributes

• Miserable
• Dishonest

Did you know? In Elizabethan times, people born under the influence of the planet Saturn were thought to be moody and miserable.

Leonato
Leonato is the Governor of Messina. He is Hero’s dad. Leonato welcomes Don Pedro and his followers to his house. He also takes care of Beatrice, his niece. He is friendly and full of fun when things are going his way. He’s very quick to believe the prince and Claudio over his own daughter, though. He pretends to the world that his daughter is dead, rather than publicly sticking up for her. He is very forgiving of Claudio though, as he still allows him to marry his daughter at the end.

At the very beginning of the play in Act 1 Scene 1, Leonato sums up the moral of the story and gives insight into his good nature with this philosophy:

LEONATO
How much better is it to weep at joy, than to joy at weeping!

Act 1 Scene 1

Character attributes

• Kind hearted
• Hot-tempered

Hero
Hero is Leonato’s daughter. Claudio asks for her hand in marriage. Hero doesn’t have much say in the matter; it’s for her father to decide. Hero’s cousin, Beatrice is also her close friend. Hero is quiet and mild mannered, but she is confidently in charge when they trick Beatrice. She does not stand up for herself when she is accused of being unfaithful. She has to pretend to die, before being married to Claudio for a second time.

In Act 1 Scene 1, Claudio says that Hero is:

CLAUDIO
…the sweetest lady that ever I looked on.

Act 1 Scene 1

Character attributes

• Quiet
• Innocent

Antonio
Antonio is Leonato’s brother. He is an old man, but he wants to defend his niece’s honour and stands up to Don Pedro and Claudio to support his brother. He threatens Claudio in Act 5 scene 1:

ANTONIO
Sir Boy, I’ll whip you from your foining fence.

Act 5 Scene 1

Character attributes

• Loyal
• Hot-tempered

Margaret
Margaret is Hero’s lady-in-waiting. She likes boys a lot and even flirts with Benedick. She also likes telling dirty jokes. Her night with Borachio gets Hero into deep trouble. Borachio says that she knew nothing about the nasty trick that is played on Claudio, but it’s difficult to tell.

Borachio defends Margaret’s character, but can he be trusted? He says in Act 5 Scene 1 that she:

BORACHIO
…always hath been just and virtuous.

Act 5 Scene 1

Character attributes

• Tactless
• A flirt

Ursula
Ursula is Hero’s lady in waiting. She is much more sensible than Margaret, but in Act 3 Scene 1, she heartily joins in with the trick that is played on Beatrice:

URSULA
Fear you not my part of the dialogue.

Act 3 Scene 1

Character attributes

• Sensible
• Loyal

Friar Francis
Friar Francis is shocked by the events at the wedding. He doesn’t know Hero very well, but he can tell that the outrageous things they say about her are lies. He comes up with the plan to pretend that Hero is dead to make Claudio feel sorry. You might think a holy man shouldn’t tell lies. Everybody else in the play does it, though!

The Friar defends Hero in Act 5 Scene 4:

FRIAR
Did I not tell you she was innocent?

Act 5 Scene 4

Character attributes

• Kind
• Wise

Dogberry
Dogberry is the constable in charge of the watch. He unintentionally saves the day. He roots out the villains and clears Hero’s name. He is completely serious, and very honest. The way he speaks is funny because he tries to use big words and gets them wrong all the time.

In Act 4 Scene 2, he is taking down Conrade and Borachio’s statements and Conrade calls him an ass. He wants this written down. He says:

DOGBERRY
…though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass

Act 4 Scene 2

Character attributes

• Proud
• Well meaning

Verges and the Watchmen
These are the 'policemen' that work with Dogberry. They are comic figures, but if you look beyond this, they are the only truly honest characters in the play.

When they arrest Borachio, the second watchman says:

DOGBERRY
…we have here recovered the most dangerous piece of lechery, that ever was known in the commonwealth.

Act 4 Scene 2

Character attributes

• Honest
• Fools

Other characters include:

• The Sexton, who helps Dogberry to examine the suspects.
• Balthasar, who is Don Pedro’s personal musician.
• A boy, Benedick’s servant.
• Attendants, messengers and musicians.