At this point in the play, it seems Benedick and Beatrice are attempting to prove something and score points off each other by winning arguments.
The second main scene for examining the relationship’s development is the masked ball, where Benedick and Beatrice dance with one another, whilst Benedick wears a mask. This scene is not only important from a textual point of view, but it is also because of the possibilities for the mise-en-scène. A director in producing this scene may consider the many possibilities in the ways he could make the Benedick and Beatrice characters act towards each other singularly, and how they move together. As this scene is set at a masked ball with the sets of dancing characters moving into the main focal point of the scene one after the other, Benedick and Beatrice would be dancing also. There are two ways in which Benedick and Beatrice could dance together, and these could give different views of how they are together. If they danced badly, with Benedick treading on Beatrice’s toes, for example, it would show how they were bad together and how their relationship doesn’t really work. If they danced well, it would show how they worked well together, and they were meant to be together, as it would show how they could act together as a single unit. The way they danced would reflect the way the director interpreted the text throughout the play.
We cannot tell whether Beatrice knows that it is Benedick she is dancing with, but there are certain lines in which it seems she does, such as, ‘I am sure you know him well enough’ (Act II, Scene 1, l.99), which seems as though she is trying to get Benedick to realise she knows. However, if Beatrice really knows that it is Benedick behind the mask, then she must actually think that he is ‘the prince’s jester’ and ‘a very dull fool’, which makes us think that she doesn’t really love Benedick. On the other hand, Beatrice may just be saying this as she knows that it is Benedick behind the mask, and so she wants to seem hateful towards him. The fact that Benedick is wearing a mask actually seems to make him and Beatrice braver, so that they feel they can speak their minds or say what they feel. Beatrice is braver because she isn’t talking straight to Benedick’s face, and Benedick is braver because he thinks Beatrice doesn’t know that it is him beneath the mask.
In Act II, Scene 3, when he “discovers” from Don Pedro, Claudio and Leonato that Beatrice loves him, Benedick appears to accept the fact almost instantly, because ‘the white bearded fellow’ (Act II, Scene 3, l.106) said so, namely Leonato. Although at first he is surprised that someone as strong minded and set in her ways as Beatrice has freely admitted so to Hero, Benedick readily admits that he is now ready to commit to a relationship, as ‘when [he] said [he] would die a bachelor, [he] did not think [he] would live till [he] were married’. This shows how Benedick actually changes his whole view of life now that his feelings seem to have been returned.
At the end of Act II, Beatrice still seems to hate Benedick, but Act II, Scene 1 seems to change her mind slightly. Here, Hero and Beatrice’s roles have been swapped, with Hero talking for the greater part of the scene, and Beatrice mirroring Benedick in the last scene, being a silent, secret audience.
When Beatrice walks into the “middle” of a conversation between Hero and Ursula, after being lured there by Margaret, she is thought of as the fish in ‘the pleasant’st angling’ (Act III Scene 1 l.26). It seems that this ‘fish’ has not only been lured by Hero and her maids, but also someone like Don Pedro, as it is not like Hero to talk so much, therefore she may have been given some form of script or been told what to do. This is somewhat ironic, and draws much attention to the artificiality of the play as it would have been performed, as the actor would have been told what to say also.
When Beatrice learns that Benedick loves her, she is slightly taken aback, and does not accept it as readily as Benedick. She decides to ‘requite’ (return) Benedick’s love, as though she is just doing so to stop Benedick from being hurt, or to take advantage of a love struck man.
In Act III, Scene 2, Benedick has changed a lot, as he says, ‘Gallants, I am not as I have been’ (l.11). Benedick has lost his beard, and has started wearing perfume and make-up. This change reflects the change he has made to his attitude to life, and it is making him somewhat of the butt of the jokes of the other soldiers, rather than making these jokes. He seems indifferent to this though. Along with his new ideas of commitment, Benedick has gotten more serious and less witty, as where the soldiers make a joke at him, he would usually make a witty remark back, but this does not happen. The most accurate description of this new, refined Benedick would be Don Pedro’s in line 40, which describes him as ‘melancholy’. Benedick says in line 16 that he has the toothache, which he seems to have only gotten since he found out Beatrice loved him; therefore this could be some form of love sickness that he is feeling after the initial shock of finding out.
In Act III, Scene 4, Beatrice appears to be a mirror of Benedick again, as she is also now the target of wit and is the one being attacked. Beatrice is also ill, which is turned into a joke by Margaret when Beatrice says, ‘I am stuffed, cousin, I cannot smell’ (l.47). Margaret takes this as something more serious than an average cold, ‘A maid and stuffed!’ (l.48), an innuendo for something such as a sexually transmitted disease or morning sickness.
In Act IV, Scene 1, after Hero has been accused by Claudio, when Benedick goes to comfort Beatrice, the conversation that follows subverts the gender roles that Benedick and Beatrice represent. In line 258, Beatrice totally undermines the authority Benedick had and respect that Shakespearean women were supposed to show men by saying, ‘It is a man’s office, but not yours.’ This could either be insulting to Benedick, or she could care about him, and therefore does not want Benedick to get hurt by fighting Claudio.
Beatrice subverts her role as a women, by crying, ‘Oh that I were a man!’, which shows how passionate she was about avenging her good cousin’s slander.
In the final scene of the play, Beatrice and Benedick are at last brought together. This moment is not through their own willing, but overall by the will of Leonato, Don Pedro, Hero and the other “plotters”, who bring them together by showing them letters from each other declaring their love that they had stolen from Benedick and Beatrice.
Overall, Benedick and Beatrice have an extremely tempestuous relationship that fluctuates between love and hate over time, and they are finally brought together by the sneaky members of family and friends in the tale who wish to let the pair’s hearts follow the route they wish to.
