Lying, Lying is no fun. Lying,Lying, hurts someone

But really. Lying is not always the wrong decision, in fact it can be the only good option in a situation. For example if someone in your life, say a friend, asks you if s/he looks fat when trying on a pair of jeans. What do you say? If you are a jerk then you might say yes, however, when one wants to keep their friends they will comment on the dazzling beauty that radiates from said friend. Anyways that kind of lying can be a great idea, but lying for other purposes can be great danger.

Lying as to be lazy for instance. We all know the person that will, when they grow up, call in sick to work every other day when they are not really sick. I know what you're thinking, probably "shame shame shame." And with good reason too, because liars like that are not cool. Another "real life example" of unethical liars are the people housing illegal immigrants. Come on folks, seriously don't help the illegal immigrants begin a life in America. For starters they take all the jobs and they make us Americans look bad at our own jobs, resulting in even more unenployment, and subsequently encourage more immigrants. As you can see this is a major problem that arises simply from lying.

Aside from my very excellent points on lying in the "real world" I know will consider the lying that is going on left and right in MAAN. For instance the harmless lying seems to come all in good fun and is not intended to hurt anyone. This is shown between Benedick and Beatrice many times when they are expressing false hate, and just plain flirting. Another example of the lying that is OK is from Don Pedro, Claudio, Leonato, and Hero. They are just trying to "hook up" their friends with someone they know will be great. With all this good lying going on I bet the idea of "Oh great since Leonato gets to lie now I can too!" NOT TRUE. There are bad kinds of lying too you know. This is shown by the lying that Don John uses to try to convince Claudio of Hero's disloyalty. And you know what? No one really likes Don John anyway. He is the creep who just sulks in the corner and when he does speak he seems to strike a dischord in the hearts of the viewer/reader. So hopefully you will take my words with great heed and think hard about the play, because it has many themes that seem to lurk beneath the surface.

Stereo(not the kind you're thinking of...)Types

In everyday life one usually finds themselves making stereotypes, and in shakespeare it's no different. And seemingly these "stereotypes" come back to hurt the ones who made them in time. So, it just goes to show.... you cant judge a book by it's cover.
In MAAN there is the stereotype of Dogberry, who is not the sharpest tool in the shed, if you know what I mean. However, when he did have information that was vital to keeping the innocence of Hero intact the higher class men simply ignored him as a lowly, stupid serf. Shakespeare develops Dogberry to be a somewhat "slow" character and has the educated, and wealthy class laugh down on him. This stereotype of lower class men seemed to create a picture of foolish, rowdy, and unreliable to the wealthy. This seems to come back and bite them in the butt later when Leonato decides to just blow him off and the vital information of the framation of Hero. In this way Shakespeare seems to condemn stereotypes, for he shows the repercussions of negative ones.