How are Beatrice and Benedick portrayed? In

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How are Beatrice and Benedick portrayed?

In William Shakespeare’s play

“Much Ado About Nothing”

At the beginning of William Shakespeare’s play “Much Ado About Nothing” he portrays Beatrice and Benedick as two argumentative young people. However he also portrays them as being attracted to each other, this becomes clear because the first thing Beatrice says in the play is “ I pray you, is Signor Mountanto return’d from the wars or no?” She is talking about Benedick asking the messenger in a joking kind of way did Benedick come back from the war or did he die? This shows that Beatrice is clearly interested in Benedick because he is the only thing she talks about through out the whole of act one. Also the first thing Benedick says is also about Beatrice “were you in doubt sir that you ask’d her?” Also the first time in the play that Beatrice and Benedick lay eyes on each other they have an argument. When these two are having their argument they are arguing about the silliest things. “Benedick: you are a rare parrot teacher Beatrice: a bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.” In a way they are always in tune with each other, arguing about the same things but exchanging words in their argument. The audience get the impression that they are masking their feelings. For example if you liked someone you would exchange a complement, instead of doing that these two exchange insults which is their only way of communicating in a civilised manner. Even from the start of the play we know they are destined to be together.

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These two characters have had a relationship in the past: “I know you of old” and now they use their wits to try and hurt their partner in a “Merry War”. The opening conversation is like a fight with words, they use each other’s words as swords by fighting each other to see who will win the battle. Both of these characters are very quick witted we can see this by all of the arguments and how quickly each answers back with a smart comment after one has said some thing, “Disdain”. This proves the point Leonanto made about their ...

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