A detailed account that examines and investigates the trials of Jesus; I will be examining the events that took place between the time Jesus was arrested up till he was crucified.
Beatrice and Benedick
In this study, I will be exploring the way in which the relationship between Beatrice and Benedick is presented in Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare.
Much Ado About Nothing is a play that presents the vast and sometimes ridiculous outcomes of deception. One of William Shakespeare's many comedy plays, Much Ado About Nothing differs from most of the other comedies in that it has naturalized the romantic materials. In this romantic comedy two sets of lovers share the spotlight.
Most of the plot's action is devoted to Claudio and Hero, who eventually come together despite various predicaments preventing their union.
The plot which concerns the relationship between Claudio and Hero, in contrast to the parallel plot of Beatrice and Benedick has much in common with Shakespeare's later plays therefore in my opinion, their relationship is not as interesting or profound as that of Beatrice and Benedick.
In the opening scene of the play the audience discovers that there was a battle being fought and several men are on their way home from the battlefield.
Beatrice asks a messenger about one man in particular-who turns out to be Benedick. When she asks this messenger about him, she doesn't use his name directly, she instead calls him, "Signor Montanto". By using this reference she is obviously being ironic. Beatrice could be using this term to mean a move in fencing, which is an upward thrust. Also, the way she pronounces it, Mount-on-to, could describe a specific sexual connotation. Either way, one cannot help but to think that Benedick is on her mind.
During the same conversation she attacks his wit and attitude:
She says: Alas, he gets nothing by that. In our last conflict four of his five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man governed with one; so that if he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let him bear it for a difference between himself and his horse, for it is all the wealth that he hath left to be known a reasonable creature. Who is his companion now? He hath every month a new sworn brother.
By this Beatrice is implying that Benedick uses his wit to gain friendship and companionship. After she makes this clear she remarks that the only real companionship that he has gained is that of his horse.
When Benedick makes his presence into the play he wastes no time in getting a response from Beatrice: "If Signor Leonato be her father, she would not have his head on her shoulders for all Messina, as like him as she is" Here, Benedick is referring to a cuckold's horns (with that is derived yet another sexual connotation) and his aim is to have Hero, Leonato's daughter object. Saying this will in turn provoke a response from Beatrice and thus, start a conversation.
This remark displays Benedick's wit directly as he uses others to provoke and more specifically encourage Beatrice.
Benedick is a young lord of Padua. After his friends play a trick on him and he finds out that Beatrice likes him he falls deeply in love with her.
'When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she's a fair lady. I do spy some marks of love in her'.
He expresses his love for her through a letter that Claudio steals from him and gives to Beatrice. In the end of the story they represent the perfect stereotypical couple.
Beatrice is, in my opinion, the most significant character in the play. She has a dramatic nature. She shows how strong she is when she says that she was born to speak all mirth and no matter. She entertains everyone by her love for Benedick. Although it is obvious she that she is in love with him due to her exaggerated dismissive manner towards him and references ...
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He expresses his love for her through a letter that Claudio steals from him and gives to Beatrice. In the end of the story they represent the perfect stereotypical couple.
Beatrice is, in my opinion, the most significant character in the play. She has a dramatic nature. She shows how strong she is when she says that she was born to speak all mirth and no matter. She entertains everyone by her love for Benedick. Although it is obvious she that she is in love with him due to her exaggerated dismissive manner towards him and references to him, she denies it throughout the play until the end. She shows a lot of compassion for her wronged cousin, Hero. She tells Benedick to kill Claudio to gain vengeance for Claudio wronging Hero, and then she will love him. Although he does not kill Claudio because the truth comes out, she still is in love with Benedick. Both characters play by other rules, and like less with the eye than with the mind, relying on their own judgment, not on society's customs.
They are both exquisitely self-conscious, but their self-consciousness takes the paradoxical form of a jaunty indifference to conventional niceties, an almost reckless exuberance that masks a heightened sensitivity to the social currents in which they swim.
The couple are recognized and applauded by the others in this highly civilised group of figures as supreme in the 'merry war' of wit, as the cleverest talkers in a society which values their dexterity.
At first glance it may seem odd that these two characters should so dominate a play in which the main 'ado' concerns Don John's villainous attempt to thwart the marriage arranged between Claudio and Hero.
But it would be a mistake to think of them as real. They belong, with all of the other court figures, to a stylised, highly conventional world in which the mundane needs of everyday life fade into the background, no one has to earn a living, the wars are over, and all may devote themselves to match-making.
Beatrice and Benedick are more consistently and outrageously witty than others in a play in which so much depends upon dialogue.
Perhaps it is not so much the quality of their witty exchanges that makes them such powerful and vibrant figures, as the energy and skill with which they parry each other, and so preserve a stance of tough-minded independence.
Beatrice and Benedick are able to flout conventions to because Shakespeare has taken care not to encumber them with close relatives; Benedick has none, and Beatrice is an orphan. She talks with a man's license, and Benedick with the liberty of an independent visitor, the more readily in that there is no one to restrain either of them; and the rest accept this presumption on the part of the young in homage to their superior wit.
After this opening scene with the two characters, an onslaught of wit and intelligence is thrown about between the two in a dialogue that resembles that of war itself.
Beatrice first begins by saying: "I wonder that you will still be talking, Signor Benedick nobody marks you"
Beatrice wonders why he is even saying anything because no one in the room has even started a conversation with him in the first place.
Then, like two prizefighters exchanging blows, the audience reads: Is it possible disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signor Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain if you come in her presence. In this sentence she is incurring that whenever Benedick comes in contact with a woman he automatically turns courtesy (in context of ways to treat a woman) to utter hatred-disdain in fact.
Benedick counters this when he says: Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted. And I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart, for truly I love none Here, he saying how can that be, he has never loved anyone nor will he ever. Benedick knows that "all ladies" admire him but he won't accept the charges from Beatrice because he has never been in that situation before.
Some time passes and then the masked ball scene occurs. This is a dance where every one is wearing a mask of some kind and Beatrice and Benedick are dancing together. In this scene Beatrice knows that it is in fact Benedick she is dancing with. Benedick is aware that his dancing partner is Beatrice as well but uses his false identity to find out what she thinks of him, without realising that she is as aware of his identity as he is with hers.
Beatrice uses this time as the perfect opportunity to toy with Benedick as she pleases: Why, he is the Prince's jester, a very dull fool. Only his gift is in devising in him, and the commendation is not in his wit but in his villainy, for he both pleases men and angers them, and then they laugh at him and beat him. I am sure he is in the fleet. I would he had boarded me.
By this comment, Beatrice again attacks his wit, but this time right to his face. She says that he should not be commended for his wit alone, but for the way he uses it-to be villainous.
Several times throughout the play both characters speak aside from everyone else. The first of which is when Benedick speaks in Act II Scene III. He wonders how a man can look at two people falling in love and basically laugh at them for seeming so ridiculous. However at the same time be so contradicting when he himself falls in love. He is thinking of Claudio at this point and then he applies what he sees to himself. He believes that he will not fall in love as Claudio did, but he doesn't know exactly; he seems to be confused.
When Beatrice speaks aside in Act III, Scene I, the language she uses is beautifully spoken in sonnet form as opposed to Benedick who spoke in general prose with a blank verse. She knows exactly what she is thinking and what she will do without confusion as Benedick portrayed. This alone should provide meaningful insight into why Beatrice is in fact wittier than Benedick.
In Act IV, Scene I Beatrice is about to protest that she loves Benedick.
As she is about to do this Beatrice concocts a brilliant plan to test Benedick one last time. She tells him to kill Claudio for wronging her cousin. At first Benedick says, "Ha! Not for the wide world. Shortly after this dialogue he realises his love for her and succumbs to her request: Enough, I am engaged; I will challenge him. I will kiss your hand, and so I leave you. By this hand, Claudio shall render me a dear account. As you hear of me, so think of me. In this excerpt Benedick speaks with such conviction that one cannot help but think the effect Beatrice has had over him is not short of brilliant.
She has just told him to kill his best friend, his brother of sorts, and he has wilfully accepted. In the confines of a fictional world, it is easy to make rationalizations. Shakespeare does quite an excellent job of making his fictional world seem like reality and makes believers out of non-believers. Of course it may be difficult to understand him at times, it is wonderful to analyse two characters such as Beatrice and Benedick.
They have such real qualities that come alive when reading the dialogue. After reading rather extensively into these two characters it becomes unmistakable that Beatrice does in fact have intellectual dominance over Benedick. Her wittiness makes Benedick look like nothing short of a fool, making her one of Shakespeare's finest creations.
Hero and Claudio represent an idealised love that was a very widespread image of love in the Elizabethan renaissance.
With the introduction of Beatrice and Benedick, we see a very different picture- a love that thrives on conflict and tension. While Claudio says of Hero, Can the world buy such a gem? Benedick refers to Beatrice as my dear lady disdain. While Claudio and Hero whisper sweet nothings into each other ears, Beatrice and Benedick bicker incessantly. (Compare My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart, to If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her.) However, the play ultimately shows that Beatrice and Benedick's relationship is the more genuine.
When early on in the play Claudio asks, Hath Leonato any son my lord?
This is one of the first questions Claudio asks about Hero. This would suggest that he is finding out whether she will inherit all of Leonato's wealth before he finally decides that he loves Hero. When Don Pedro replies, 'no child but Hero' he immediately delivers a speech about how much he loves her, how fair young Hero is.
This speech seems to be genuine but is he simply being shallow? The fact that Claudio says he is in love with Hero having only known her well for a few days raises the question as to how sincere Claudio really is. My liking might too sudden seem. This quotation shows that he realises that it may seem odd that he has fallen in love with a potentially rich maid too quickly. However, we should remember that the idea of love at first sight¨ was very popular in Shakespeare's day. (Romeo and Juliet, for instance, fall in love at first sight).
Shakespeare presents Beatrice and Benedick very much as equals in Much Ado About Nothing. If you compare how Beatrice talks to Don Pedro to how she talks to Benedick one can see that she thinks herself as being equal in superiority with Benedick but inferior to the Prince.
Benedick: God keep your ladyship still in that mind, so some gentlemen or other shall scape a predestinate scratched face.
Beatrice: Scratching could not make it worse, and twere such a face as yours were.
Don Pedro: Will you have me, lady?
Beatrice: No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days, your grace is too costly to wear every day.
There seems to be less trust in Hero and Claudio's relationship than Beatrice and Benedick's relationship. If the same scenario (Benedick suspected Beatrice of wronging him) had happened to Benedick and Beatrice then I am sure Benedick would have investigated further before taking any action as he trusts more readily. This trust is shown when despite not believing that Claudio wronged Hero he goes with Beatrice's will and challenges Claudio. This also shows that Beatrice and Benedick would do anything for each other, even kill ones best friend to prove their love for one another.
Beatrice and Benedick have been well acquainted for a long time, I know you of old¨, whereas, Claudio and Hero barely know each other before they decide that they love each other.
In Much Ado About Nothing there are three pairs of lovers. One is the idealised more popular love, Hero and Claudio. Another is the love that thrives on conflict and tension, Beatrice and Benedick. And the last is the more vulgar and squalid side of love, Margaret and Borachio, which is purely sexual. Although at first sight one pair of lovers seems to fulfil the stereotype of true love, after carefully analysing one eventually sees that Beatrice and Benedick's love seems to be the more authentic.
Overall Beatrice and Benedick's relationship seems altogether more genuine.
I regard their relationship as one of the most engaging and entertaining of Shakespeare's creations.
Both Beatrice and Benedick are essences; they are the progenitors of the clichés of the woman-hater turned lover and the ice-queen turned golden-heart. Both of them experience a very similar sequence of events, both work with their respective tutee's in love in the same way, and both come to realise their love for each other through tricks played upon them by their own friends. In this, Benedick and Beatrice are really the true soul mates of the story in that they truly seem to be of the same cloth and of the same heart - two halves of the same whole. Their change from enmity to love covers the course of the entire play and, in many ways, is much more engaging, amusing, entertaining, and ultimately rewarding than that of Hero and Claudio.
Isobel Manley
6RCR