Claudio uses over exaggerated language to express his feelings when he meets her, he says ‘can the world buy such a jewel?’ This tells us he straight away jumps to conclusions. We know this because he has not even spoken to her before and he wants to marry her.
Leonato uses abusive and offensive words towards his daughter. Leonato says ‘Why ever wast thou lovely eyes? Why had I not with charitable hand took up a beggers issue at my gates, Who smirched thus and mur’d with infamy, this shame derives itself from unknown lair’. He talks to his daughter as if she’s guilty. He doesn’t even know or want to know her anymore as if he’s just disowned her.
Leonato believes the men over his own flesh and blood as the men have more witnesses of the scene ‘Confirmed confirmed; would the prince lie and Claudio lie, who lov’d her so that speaking of her foulness, washed it with tears?’ Hero has no one to defend her except Margeret, but Margeret stays quiet and doesn’t speak a word through this scene as she doesn’t want to be humiliated like Hero has been and also she does not want to be know as a so called liar or be torn apart by all the men.
Between the men they all have similarities and they believe anything another man tells them because men are stronger then women and in Hero’s case just ignored. I think the men do not think properly before they judge people, they’re to ignorant. When Don John showed them what Hero was supposedly like which they believed straight away. Hero has no chance of defending herself as she is a woman and woman and accepts her position as a Elizabethan woman. She also knows that no one will believe her ‘O God defend me how am I beset!’ This shows us that she is in an impossible situation and has no way out from this unless the person who told Claudio and Don Pedro confess. Who is obviously a man because men were respected and listed to.
At the end of the scene Beatrice is alone with Benedick. She tries to make him say he loves her , which he does I think Beatrice is quite powerful but can not show much of this apart from when she’s speaking to Benedick because she’s not allowed to be this way, and Benedick says ‘I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is not that strange?’ She feels the same but is not vulnerable to this.
After Benedick tells her he loves her, she asks him to ‘Kill Claudio’ this shows us she’s being quite sly and clever as she is a woman and is incapable of killing Claudio. She is very manipulative as then she says ‘O God that I were a man!’ I would eat his heart in the market place’ her language at this point is vicious and very manipulative. This shows us her anger for her cousin.
Beatrice’s language is very challenging, strong and clear of what she wants. Women were expected to be feminine and they were powerless because men were mostly the leaders of their families and society.
Benedick is very different to the other men because he treats Beatrice equal. He sticks by her and does anything to keep her happy ‘By this hard, Claudio shall render me a dear account. As you hear of me, so think of me’.
Benedick and Beatrice’s relationship is the opposite of Claudio’s and hero. As the women didn’t really have their own role they were told what to do. Women of today can now have a more equal marriage like Benedick and Beatrice. It shows us that not all women in relationships have to be arranged and ruled by the men but can come together through true love and feelings.
This scene is important because it illustrates how men treated women, how their families were treated, it shows how women were treated if they were not to obey their so called women like role and shows their attitude towards women. As well it tells us how we should treat women referring to Benedick and Beatrice which is how Shakespeare must have felt about the inequality of men towards women. This is also a powerful scene to watch with lots of drama, hate and love which is why it attracts lots of audiences.