Beatrice is a fearless woman, who engages in verbal warfare with other people, including both women and men. This is very unusual for a woman in a patriarchal society. Her greatest challenger is of course, Benedick. It is through this verbal bantering that the audience can see their strengths and gets to hear their opinions, and together they glory in the challenge of their next duel. Beatrice’s gratuitous impertinence and unseeming forwardness upsets many people. She comes across as feminist and says at one point that she “would rather hear her dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves her”. Her demanding personality comes out when she tells Benedick to “Kill Claudio” for Hero’s sake. The words “kill Claudio” can provoke laughter and tension from the audience as it was not common for a woman to give orders. The real character of Beatrice comes out when Hero is disgraced by Claudio. We see her possessive side when she takes matters into her own hands and orders Benedick to kill Claudio for Hero’s sake.
In Shakespearean plays, female characters were portrayed by men dressed in women clothing. In the Kenneth Brannagh version, the women all wore white to symbolize the women’s innocence at the time.
Beatrice’s love for picking arguments with people, especially with Benedick could be a sign of her anger against him for abandoning her when they had courted before. She says “he lent it me a while and I gave him use for it, a double heart for a single one, marry once before he won it off me, with false dice, therefore your grace may well say I have lost it” in Act 2 Scene 1. The audience can see that her bitterness towards him is a way of protecting herself from having her heart broken.
Hero’s name is quite ironic in that the audience does not hear much about her in the play. A hero is described in the dictionary as being ‘a man/woman of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his/her brave deeds and noble qualities’. Hero is nothing like that. Her character is not distinguished as she does not say much throughout the play hence the audience does not know a lot about her. Despite being the source of most of the play’s commotion, she still manages to fade into the background. Hero is a typical example of what a true Elizabethan woman was expected to be like – to be seen and not heard. She gladly and willingly submits to marriage, and she accepts the role of the relatively powerless woman. In gathering what we know about her, we discover that she is a kind “modest young lady” who falls in love with Claudio on their first encounter. It makes us question whether she is actually in love with Claudio or she is just her eagerness to be married off. Claudio refers to her as a “jewel”. We get the idea therefore that she is a beautiful girl and that she is viewed as a possession, like all women were in the patriarchal society. Her belief in love seems to overshadow her personality.
When Hero’s is accused of being unchaste by Claudio, Leonato seems to question Hero’s chastity too. This shows how a few words can change the love of a family and reverse the thought of another person. Leonato’s quickness to doubt his daughter Hero is a sign of how little faith the men had in women in patriarchal societies. Hero still marries Claudio even after he disgraces her, even though he was prepared to marry her cousin. This shows her desperation for marriage and probably her lack of belief in what she is worth, but it could also just be that Hero is a forgiving and patient person.
Like most of Shakespeare’s plays, ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ is written in blank verse with a regular iambic pentameter rhythm. Most of what is spoken is in prose, but Shakespeare uses poetry to express deep emotions. When Beatrice discovers Benedick’s love for her, Act 3 Scene 1 - “stand I condemned for pride and scorn so much” - her speech is in poetry form because her emotions are involved and it is something touching. Abiding love lifts her up beyond ordinary emotion. Beatrice comes across as vulnerable when she opens up to love after she hears Hero, Margaret and Ursula discussing Benedick’s love for her. The thought that ‘Benedick loves her entirely’ excites her to the amazement of the audience. Her excitement is unexpected as this is the softer side to Beatrice that they have not seen as at yet. All along she has been presented as too realistic to believe in romantic illusions yet falls into the convention of needing a man when all along she had made it clear that men were far from her mind, and marriage the last thing she wanted. She appears gullible. The point of this is that even though Beatrice has been the exact opposite of the conventional woman, she still gets “tamed” by Benedick and hence becomes his wife. This almost defeats the purpose of the character of Beatrice, as she just becomes like all the other women when she marries Benedick.
Shakespeare uses poetry to distinguish the emotional parts of the play. A good example is in Act 4 scene 1 in the marriage scene from Claudio’s speech “sweet prince you learn me noble thankfulness”, up to the part where everyone but Beatrice and Benedick leaves. Poetry is used to show deception which causes injustice, as a good character is touched by evil. This makes the audience question nature. The use of poetry addresses the universal theme of injustice. Hero’s dignity after being accused darkens the accusation because she does not lose her composure and is hurt terribly.
Even though Beatrice comes across as a bold character who is not afraid to say anything, the words seem to slip out of her when she reveals to Benedick how she wishes “he had boarded” her. This may seem like an innocent comment but it shows her deep desire for Benedick to woo her and have sexual relations with her. This is evidence of her longing for a man and yet she still denies that she needs one. These words reflect her nature and reveal a lot about her character without her realizing she is doing it.
Another element of the play that gets the audiences’ attention is the metaphor of taming wild animals. It takes a time to tame savage wild animals just like it took time for Beatrice and Benedick’s social taming before they realize their love for each other. They needed the time to adjust to the needs and trails of being in love and later on being married to each other. Beatrice gives her heart to Benedick in Act 3 scene 1 telling him to “love on; I will recite thee, taming my wild heart to thy loving hand”, she refers to herself as if she were an animal and her ‘wild heart’ needed taming. Claudio and Don Pedro also compare Benedick to a wild animal, “in time the savage bull doth bear the yoke,'" Act 1 Scene 1, meaning that in time even Benedick, who is seen like a savage bull whose against marriage, will break to the taming that love and marriage brings. Beatrice and Benedick’s developed love is shown after they are fooled into thinking the other loves them. In the end, the fact that the two were tricked into falling in love is irrelevant as their love for each other has been nurtured to a point were they are both willing to commit and get married.
The character of Beatrice is used by Shakespeare to go against the conventional woman in a patriarchal society. She does everything that is unexpected of a woman. She rebels against the unequal treatment of women in the patriarchal society and refuses to marry until she finds her perfect match - Benedick of course. The character of Hero is an example of what the women were expected to be like. Shakespeare uses Beatrice to challenge the role of the conventional woman of this time.
