Are Beatrice and Benedick an ideal couple? Is the fact that they are roughly equal in wit and intelligence significant? Do you find their attitude towards love and courtship more satisfying than Claudio and Hero's? Why or why not?

Are Beatrice and Benedick an ideal couple? Is the fact that they are roughly equal in wit and intelligence significant? Do you find their attitude towards love and courtship more satisfying than Claudio and Hero’s? Why or why not?

‘Much Ado About Nothing’ is a Shakespeare play set in Mecina. It is a comedy, about Don Pedro and his friends. The play focuses on the relationships of the characters, especially that of Beatrice/Benedick and Claudio/Hero. The two romances follow two different ideas, one an average romance in Shakespeare’s day, the other a not so average romance. Beatrice and Benedick’s history together is made clear from the start, when Beatrice tells the messenger bringing news of Benedick’s return, that he ‘is no less than a stuffed man’, implying that he is very full of himself. This shows right from the start that any romance between Benedick and Beatrice would be rather complicated. However, Hero and Claudio’s relationship is much more simple. Claudio remarks that Hero ‘is the sweetest Lady that ever I look’d on’ and that to a Shakespearian audience would be enough for them to presume the two would get married, because Claudio was a fairly important person. However, that may not be so satisfying to a modern audience, who are used to romances ending in disaster in films or on TV. This essay will look at the ways in which these two romances work, and which is more satisfying to an audience of today, as well as the audience this play was designed for.

As ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ starts, the first thing the audience is aware of is the use of Beatrice’s wit against Benedick, when a messenger brings news of the arrival of Don Pedro to Mecina. Beatrice asks the messenger ‘is Signior Mountanto return’d from the wars or no’. The messenger does not understand whom she is talking about until Hero tells him she means Benedick. The audience now know that Beatrice and Benedick’s relationship is far from perfect, and Beatrice then goes on to insult Benedick using her ‘wit’. This all happens in the first scene, so their relationship is established from the beginning.

Hero and Claudio’s relationship gets established near the beginning as well. However, this one is much more simple. Claudio comments on how the world cannot buy a jewel as great as Hero, and after Don Pedro woos her for him they are set to get married, without any serious problems.

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The two main relationships the play focuses on are now set, and the two audiences have different views on them. For an audience today to see Hero and Claudio decide to get married so simply would be boring. However, a Shakespearian audience would see this relationship as ordinary, and not be bothered that it was so simple. Although Beatrice and Benedick are not yet shown as in love, a Shakespearian audience would not have thought it usual for a woman like Beatrice to be speaking as she was about Benedick. However, today it is perfectly normal for Beatrice to be talking like she is, so at the moment, the two relationships are more satisfying to the different audiences.

Beatrice and Benedick’s relationship has another problem. They both like to use their wit and intelligence to try and outsmart people, and mainly themselves. Because of this they are constantly going to be trying to outsmart the other, and this is a large part of the reason their relationship is as it is. The audiences of both today and then enjoy the wit fights that Beatrice and Benedick have, and add comedy to the play. They provide a bit of humour, especially when the play has it’s darker moments nearer the end. ‘Benedick: I would my horse had the speed of your tongue.’ It is clear from the way they talk to each other that they have some history together which the audience are unaware of. Beatrice hints at it when she says ‘I lent him my heart awhile… he gave me a half heart for my full one’ this implies to the audience that maybe Beatrice and Benedick ‘courted’, and Beatrice didn’t think Benedick loved her as much as she loved him. This would explain why they are so nasty to each other, and why they fall so easily for the ‘gull’.

In Benedick’s gulling scenes Don Pedro, Leonato and Claudio pretend they have overheard Beatrice talking, and say that she is madly in love with Benedick. ‘Don Pedro: Do so, farewell. Come hither Leonato, what was I you told me of today, that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick’. They discuss this nearby where Benedick is ‘hiding’ from them, on purpose, so he can hear everything they say. He believes everything they say ‘I would think this a gull, but that the white bearded fellow speaks it’, and because he believes it so quickly it implies to the audience that he probably already had feelings for Beatrice. Hero and Ursula gull Beatrice, and, like Benedick, she also falls for it straight away ‘and I believe it better than revoltingly.’ Because they fell for it so easily, it does suggest to the audience that there was probably an attraction already between the two. This satisfies both the audiences of today and then, as it would not seem right (even now) for the two of them to fall in love simply because of what someone has said.

Hero and Claudio’s relationship is much different. There love is based much more on ‘fairytale’ love. They have a much simpler relationship (at first), which involves the two of them, simply deciding they love each other, and so getting married.

‘Count take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes’

This sort of love would have been seen as normal to the audience Shakespeare originally wrote this play for, but to an audience of today it would seem utterly ridiculous that two people would decide to get married without even getting to know each other properly.

The relationship of Hero and Claudio is, however, not as simple as it at first appears. Don John, the bastard brother of Don Pedro, makes it out as of Hero is sleeping in her room with another man.

‘the Lady is disloyal’

Claudio is very quick to believe this, even though John is not the trustworthiest person, and what’s more, he uses the information to humiliate Hero at their wedding. This does suggest that maybe their love is not as solid as it could be, and suggests to the audience of today that Claudio probably does not love Hero as much as he claims. However, to a Shakespearian audience, where affairs were not as normal as they are today, they would see it as, in case Mia does decide to just copy my essay, please know it’s just Matt McDonald’s, and I gave it to her so she understood what to do, because she claimed not to be in school when it was set (which is probably true) ordinary that Claudio would want to humiliate Hero, after thinking she had had an affair. At their wedding he says ‘Not to knit my soul to an approved wanton’, in front of everyone he basically calls Hero a whore. This, as you can imagine, destroys Hero. Her entire reputation is ruined, and, worse than that, her entire families reputation is ruined.

After this you would expect Hero never to want to see Claudio again. However, after she has been cleared, she still wants to marry Claudio. ‘Give me your hand before this holy Friar’. To an audience of today this would just sound absurd. To marry someone after they have called you a whore in front of all your friends and family is something no one nowadays would even dream of doing. However, in Shakespeare’s time this wouldn’t have seemed so strange to the audience, and they would probably just have accepted it.

Once Beatrice and Benedick have fallen in love they both seem to be really interested in each other. ‘Come bid me do anything for thee’ however, later on there interest seems to leave, and they go back to using there wit against each other, however with a slight difference. Now Beatrice is using it to avoid Benedick, rather than insult him. ‘Then, is spoken: fare you well now’, this is the way they stay until Claudio and Hero’s wedding, where Benedick asks Beatrice:

‘Do not you love me?’

And Beatrice replies:

‘Why no, no more than reason

They then decide that they do not love each other, until Claudio and Hero produce letters that they had written to give to each other. Benedick and Beatrice then choose to marry, however, only because ‘by this light I take thee for pity’ and ‘partly to save your life’.

The two different relationships would have been more satisfying to the two different audiences. Hero’s and Claudio’s was a very simple relationship. They loved each other, they got married. They did have a slight problem when Claudio thought Hero had been sleeping with another man, but in the end they got married. This relationship would have been most satisfying to the Shakespearian audience, because it was very simple and basic. It had a slight problem, which made it interesting to watch, but it was basically a ‘and they all lived happily ever after’ style love which was the sort of love common then. However, to an audience of today, seeing something happen that simply, and then continuing after Hero had been publicly humiliated would seem ridiculous and pointless, and not all satisfying.

Beatrice and Benedick’s relationship would be a lot more satisfying to an audience of today. No relationship is perfect, and theirs was no exception. There was plenty of tension between the two the whole way through, and you didn’t really know whether it was going to end one way, or another. It was also more realistic, because they didn’t suddenly see each other and think ‘that’s the one for me’. They worked on their relationship, and sorted out their problems, before they got married. However, to a Shakespearian audience this relationship would seem confusing, and strange, as it was not they way they were used to people behaving. Also, to see a character like Beatrice behaving in the way she did would have just been strange.

In conclusion, in Shakespeare’s play ‘Much Ado About Nothing’, the relationships of the characters Beatrice and Benedick would have satisfied an audience of today, whereas the relationship of Hero and Claudio would have satisfied the Shakespearian audience it was originally written for.

Matt McDonald