Analysis of Act III, scene iii

Dogberry and Verges provide welcome comic relief amid Don John’s evil plotting. Their brand of humor is completely different from that provided by Benedick and Beatrice; while the two witty antagonists spar with a brilliant display of wit, Dogberry and Verges get half their words wrong, providing humor with their ignorance. Yet, like Benedick and Beatrice, they are in their own way good-hearted and sincere, and the humor of both duos, sophisticated and unsophisticated, hinges on punning and verbal display.

Borachio’s account of the events of that night inform us that Don John’s plans have been put into action and that everything is working out as he intended. Once again, however, we are faced with a disturbing element in this action: Claudio and Don Pedro both believe Don John’s claims and are willing to believe that they are watching Hero without investigating the matter more closely or interrogating Hero herself about it. When we see how ready Claudio is to believe that the woman he supposedly is in love with is betraying him, we are likely to be deeply troubled about him, even though we know that the play—being a comedy—has to end happily.

Borachio lists a few factors that might make the deception of Claudio and Don Pedro more understandable. He suggests that we should blame Don John’s “oaths,” which first made Don Pedro and Claudio suspicious of Hero’s guilt; the “dark night, which did deceive them” (III.iii.136–137); and Borachio’s own flat-out lies when he testified to them that he had made love to Hero. Some critics focus on the fact that Claudio is quite young and that he does not really know Hero very well as mitigating his distrust of her. Indeed, he seems hardly to have spoken any words to her before they become engaged, although presumably they have conversed more in the week that has passed since their betrothal. Nevertheless, Claudio’s swift anger and the terrible revenge he has vowed to take—shaming Hero in public and abandoning her at the altar—has remained troubling to generations of critics and readers, as has Don Pedro’s complicity in this desired revenge. Don Pedro, after all, does not have the excuse of youth and inexperience. The brutality of the principal male characters remains a problem with which readers of Much Ado About Nothing must grapple. It is difficult to feel sympathy for Claudio and Don Pedro after seeing how quickly they believe evil of Hero—and after what they do to her in Act IV, scene i, on the day of the wedding itself.