{"id":1386472,"date":"2016-02-23T14:00:02","date_gmt":"2016-02-23T19:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community.sparknotes.com\/?p=1386472"},"modified":"2016-02-23T15:24:37","modified_gmt":"2016-02-23T20:24:37","slug":"to-understand-much-ado-about-nothing-watch-when-harry-met-sally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/blog\/to-understand-much-ado-about-nothing-watch-when-harry-met-sally\/","title":{"rendered":"To Understand Much Ado About Nothing<\/i>, Watch When Harry Met Sally<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"What’s the difference between a Shakespearean comedy and a tragedy? In one everyone gets married at the end, in the other, everyone dies. I mean, there are some qualifications regarding \u00a0fatal, ironic character flaws, but basically it comes down to whether the story ends with the \u00a0mournful “When Doves Cry<\/a>” or the jubilant \u00a0“Everybody Loves Somebody<\/a>” and a bunch of pashing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you’re boots-deep in a Shakespearean comedy right now, and struggling to find Greater Meaning \u00a0in \u00a0the mardi gras of cross-dressing, mistaken identity, and bum jokes, turn your attentions to the rom-com classic, When Harry Met Sally<\/a><\/em>. It’s \u00a0Much Ado About Nothing \u00a0<\/em>plus ’80s hair, _what_ _is_ _not_ _to_ _like<\/em>?<\/p>\n

Much Ado About What Exactly?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Much Ado<\/em> follows two ascendent couples: the “heroes,” or romantic leads, Claudio and Hero<\/strong>, who provide \u00a0the B-storyline, and the comic heavies \u00a0and anchors of the A storyline, Benedick and Beatrice<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

(Style note: I tried out for the witty Beatrice in my high school production, but was instead forced to don a beard and play \u00a0Claudio, if you’re wondering where I fell on the hot-girl totem pole during my teens.)<\/p>\n

Dramatic momentum comes from waiting for these two couples to get. it. on. through the play, as various obstacles keep them apart. Being Shakespeare, these obstacles are exquisite.* The B storyline: \u00a0a maid impersonating Hero appears in a window before Claudio, making out with another guy, and thus ruining her “virtue.” The only way for her to recover her reputation is to pretend to have died, then be introduced at the end as her own cousin. (Wasn’t that the plot of an \u00a0episode of The Bachelor<\/em>?) The A storyline: Benedick and Beatrice are each so stubborn, sarcastic, caustic, and good at hiding their true feelings that neither is capable of admitting they like the other until they are tricked into doing so. *There is a villain, Don Pedro (who was played by Keanu Reeves in the ’90s film adaptation(!)), but he’s about as complex as a cardboard cutout of Cedric Diggory.<\/p>\n

Congratulations, me\u2014this is the shortest Shakespearean plot summary you will ever find. \u00a0\u00f0\u0178\u201d\u2018\u00f0\u0178\u201d\u2018\u00f0\u0178\u201d\u2018<\/p>\n

“Sex Always Gets in the Way”<\/strong><\/p>\n

To make sense of the above plot movements, let’s now leave our pantaloons in Tuscany (Messina) and journey back to the center of the world, New York City, where we find college grads Harry and Sally driving into town to begin their adult lives, Sally believing Harry to be a beeet<\/em> of a ladies man and Harry believing her to be a leedle<\/em> bit of a prude, and possibly too good for him.<\/p>\n

At this stage, we are a dozen years \u00a0and ten Meg Ryan hairstyles away from these two getting together.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Nora Ephron’s leads are mashups of Benedick\/Beatrice and Claudio\/Hero, hamstrung \u00a0by their own preconceptions about love and \u00a0the opposite sex:<\/p>\n

HARRY BURNS: There are two kinds of women: high maintenance and low maintenance.
\nSALLY ALBRIGHT: Which one am I?
\nHARRY BURNS: You’re the worst kind; you’re high maintenance but you think you’re low maintenance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Shakespeare’s difficult leads are just as prejudiced, even if Beatrice believes herself more immune to romance \u00a0than the idealistic Hero and \u00a0Sally, performing several variations on “MEN. Can’t live with them, can’t get to a denouement \u00a0without them”:<\/p>\n

BEATRICE: \u00a0He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he
\nthat hath no beard is less than a man; and he that \u00a0is
\nmore than a youth is not for me, and he that is less
\nthan a \u00a0man, I am not for him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Benedick is just generally anti marriage (ew):<\/p>\n

BENEDICK: A man loves the
\nmeat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The first conversation Harry and Sally have, in the car on the way to New York, is about how Harry believes men and women can never be friends, because “sex always gets in the way.” Harry \u00a0means s.e.x., but of course we can read it at a slightly higher level to imply that men and women are incompatible\u2014opposites that attract and repel. And, yas indeed, Harry and Sally end their first chapter on a misunderstanding of language, \u00a0having arrived in New York City.<\/p>\n

HARRY: Because no man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her.
\nSALLY: So, you’re saying that a man can be friends with a woman he finds unattractive?
\nHARRY: No. You pretty much want to nail ’em too.
\nSALLY: What if THEY don’t want to have sex with YOU?
\nHARRY: Doesn’t matter because the sex thing is already out there so the friendship is ultimately doomed and that is the end of the story.
\nSALLY: Well, I guess we’re not going to be friends then.
\nHARRY: I guess not.
\nSALLY: That’s too bad. You were the only person I knew in New York.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Gender is a barrier to their getting together, \u00a0pitting them on opposite sides of an ongoing war (there are \u00a0two wars going on in \u00a0Messina, also!), and obscuring their honest feelings. In Much Ado<\/em>, Claudio believes Hero has cheated on him, a symptom of the men’s inherent suspicion \u00a0of women; in When Harry Met Sally<\/em>, the famous Carnegie Deli scene demonstrates the powers of deception one sex is capable of, or, to flip it, the depth of male anxiety \u00a0over their own sexual power.<\/p>\n

In both stories, girls align with girls (think of the scene in WHMS<\/em> at Tavern on the Green where Marie offers her rolodex of guys to Sally, or Hero and Margaret plotting to out Beatrice’s feelings to Benedick), and boys align with boys. The characters find it endlessly difficult to admit their true feelings, with Marie \u00a0only admitting \u00a0to Jess \u00a0that she has lived with and despised \u00a0his “Roy Rogers” coffee table after Harry blows up and makes fun of it (“I will never… want that wagon wheel coffee table.<\/a>“).<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nLEONATO: There is a kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and [Beatrice]; they never meet but there’s a skirmish of wit between them.<\/small><\/p>\n

The Sickness<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Shakespeare, as in life, love is a plague. After Hero \u00a0is smeared as a slut (“she is fallen into a pit of ink”), she \u00a0is “laid low” so she can be reborn as a virgin, ~basically~, while for Benedick, the realization that he loves Beatrice comes as happily as a terminal diagnosis (“Well, every one can master a grief but he that has it.”), and Beatrice jokes that she \u00a0“suffers” love, because she is in love \u00a0against her will.
\nFor Harry and Sally, each takes turns helping the other through the sickness of heartache with other partners, wondering by turns whether they are sick from the person or from the condition of love itself, but never considering whether their sickness is actually unrequited love for each other:<\/p>\n

HARRY: I miss her.
\nSALLY: I don’t miss him. I really don’t.
\nHARRY: Not even a little?
\nSALLY: You know what I miss? I miss the *idea* of him.
\nHARRY: Maybe I only miss the *idea* of Helen… No, I miss the whole Helen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Elsewhere, Harry jokes about the fact that lovesickness can take a human form:<\/p>\n

JESS: Marriages don’t break up on account of infidelity. It’s just a symptom that something else is wrong.
\nHARRY: Oh really? Well, that “symptom” is f* \u00a2king my wife.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s the kind of joke Billy Shakespeare (sorry) would have enjoyed, having devoted so many lines to the idea that love is temporary insanity (“for man is a giddy thing”).<\/p>\n

Here they are helping each other through another tormented breakup with someone else. WHY CAN’T THEY SEE THEY LOVE EACH OTHER??<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In another sense, Harry is right that s-e-x gets in the way: after he and Sally finally do it<\/em>, a new divide opens up between them, with Harry not saying \u00a0the words Sally \u00a0needs to hear (“ily,” for the obtuse menfolk out there), and Sally feeling like she has given up the ghost without getting the all-important “ily” in return, and that things have, as a result, changed forever (as retro as that sounds). For this reason, it’s important that Beatrice and Benedick are held to their word with two letters stating their affections on hand at the moment of truth in Act 5 Scene IV<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Masks We Wear<\/strong><\/p>\n

As I say^, Meg Ryan’s various perms \u00a0through \u00a0the years are a ~treasure~ in WHMS<\/em>, but they also function \u00a0like the [real and metaphorical] masks that Shakespeare’s characters wear \u00a0throughout his plays. The deceptions and confusions that \u00a0keep the \u00a0romantic leads apart all come down to the gap between reality and representation, between how people act and how they feel, between the things they say<\/em> and they things they mean<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The characters themselves struggle with how to interpret the words of their paramours. Here is Benedick trying to guess the hidden meaning (there isn’t one) in Beatrice’s fetching him to dinner:<\/p>\n

BENEDICK: Ha! ‘Against my will I am sent to bid you
\ncome in to dinner.’ \u00a0There’s a double meaning in
\nthat. ‘I took no more pains for those \u00a0thanks than
\nyou took pains to thank me.’ That’s as much as to
\nsay ‘Any pains that I take for you is as easy as
\nthanks.’ If I \u00a0do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I
\ndo not love her, I \u00a0am a Jew. I will go get her picture.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And here’s Harry leaving a soliloquy\/message on Sally’s phone machine after he says something dumb \u00a0(they \u00a0hooked upppp!):<\/p>\n

HARRY: The fact that you’re not answering leads me to believe you’re either (a) not at home, (b) home but don’t want to talk to me, or (c) home, desperately want to talk to me, but trapped under something heavy. If it’s either (a) or (c), please call me back.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

His inability to tell Sally he loves her and wants to be her after they finally make out becomes a new barrier. We need a verbal \u00a0resolution\u2014the great, romantic speech\u2014as well as the kiss, to get a happy ending. Until then, more tortured rhetoric. In Messina:<\/p>\n

BENEDICK: \u00a0Do not you love me?
\nBEATRICE: \u00a0Why no, no more than reason.
\nBENEDICK: \u00a0Why then, your uncle and the Prince and Claudio
\nHave been deceived. They swore you did.
\nBEATRICE: \u00a0Do not you love me?
\nBENEDICK: \u00a0Troth, no, no more than reason.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Meanwhile \u00a0in New York, an ironic inability to get beyond “friends.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

HARRY: Would you like to have dinner?… Just friends.
\nSALLY: I thought you didn’t believe men and women could be friends.
\nHARRY: When did I say that?
\nSALLY: On the ride to New York.
\nHARRY: No, no, no, I never said that… Yes, that’s right, they can’t be friends.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Resolution<\/strong><\/p>\n

Having \u00a0painted themselves into corners with their sundry protests that they *don’t* love the other person (any more than reason), Beatrice\/Benedick and Harry\/Sally have a hard time admitting that they *do.* Benedick tries to write a moving speech, but fails:<\/p>\n

BENEDICK: Marry, I cannot show it in rhyme. I have tried. I can find out no rhyme to \u201clady\u201d but \u201cbaby\u201d\u2014an innocent rhyme; for \u201cscorn,\u201d \u201chorn\u201d\u2014a hard rhyme; for, \u201cschool,\u201d \u201cfool\u201d\u2014a babbling rhyme; very ominous endings. No, I was not born under a rhyming planet, nor I cannot woo in festival terms.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Harry has somewhat better luck putting his feelings into words:<\/p>\n

HARRY: I love that you get cold when it’s 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you’re looking at me like I’m nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it’s not because I’m lonely, and it’s not because it’s New Year’s Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oh. My. God.<\/p>\n

Neither Sally nor Beatrice can resist.<\/p>\n

BEATRICE: \u00a0I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.<\/p>\n

SALLY: \u00a0You see? That is just like you, Harry. You say things like that, and you make it impossible for me to hate you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

That is, despite their character flaws (stubbornness, head-over-heart approach to life \u00a0(“Though and I are too wise to woo peaceably.”)), they have been conquered by love. <3<\/p>\n

So<\/span> much<\/span> ado<\/span> (twelve years of messing around!) over nothing.<\/p>\n

Other commonalities that are less relevant to your essays and only interesting if you have watched When Harry Met Sally<\/em> forty times<\/strong><\/p>\n