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Hero’s death. The drama! The tragedy! The symbolism? Yep. In Much Ado About Nothing, Hero’s wrenching fake death scene isn’t just the climax of this play. It’s also Shakespeare’s most important symbol.

Video Transcription:

It wouldn’t be a proper Shakespeare play without a dramatic fake death scene, right?

But in Much Ado about Nothing, Hero’s death is more than just the climax of the play. It’s also a symbol.

Act Four, scene one. Poor Claudio’s been tricked by John the Bastard into thinking that Hero has been unfaithful, and Claudio—prepared to defend his honor—confronts Hero and shames her publicly. At their wedding!

No wonder Hero slumps lifelessly to the ground. In Shakespeare’s time, an accusation of impurity was as good as a death sentence. It was a stain on the woman—and on her entire family.

Now in Hero’s case, of course, both the accusations—and Hero’s death—prove to be deceptions. Hero doesn’t really die any more than the scheme John the Bastard cooked up has any truth behind it.

But Hero’s death is still an important symbol. It represents a symbolic cleansing. And it offers Hero a way to regain her purity. After her death, she is reborn into a world where Claudio’s accusations have been proved foundationless.

By “dying,” Hero symbolically casts off her stained identity, and replaces it with innocence. And this deception allows her to marry Claudio without baggage—and to assure the world that her family’s honor is intact.