Much Ado About Nothing
Uploaded by khan87 on Mar 15, 2012
Relationship is the key subject throughout the whole play. I agree with statement of ‘Claudio and hero may be the young lovers but Beatrice and Benedick are much more appealing.’ As a comedy it is known in Shakespeare’s time to have misunderstandings, confusion and end in a wedding or in a play. Much ado does the exact of the conventions of a comedy, the play is filled with different variety of events and confused identity. In the play much ado Shakespeare emphasizes two different presentation of love via Claudio and Hero, and Beatrice and Benedick. There is evidently a contrast between the love of Claudio and Hero and Beatrice and Benedick, as in their characteristics and attributes. Claudio and Hero relationship is more serious, whereas Benedick and Beatrice is more about arguing and comedy. Claudio and Hero’s relationship being simply conventional and apparent where as Beatrice and Benedick’s based on their wit and deeper feelings. "Lord! I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face: I hath rather lie in the woollen." This quotation is mostly applied to Benedick as we know he is a person with a beard which is why Beatrice trying to make fun out him but inside she has a different feeling for him.
Beatrice is the niece of Leonato, a wealthy governor of Messina. Though she is close friends with her cousin Hero, Leonato’s daughter, the two could not be less alike. Whereas Hero is polite, quiet, respectful, and gentle, Beatrice is feisty, cynical, witty, and sharp. Beatrice keeps up a “merry war” of wits with Benedick, a lord and soldier from Padua. The play suggests that she was once in love with Benedick but that, he led her on and their relationship ended. Now when they meet, the two constantly compete to outdo one another with clever insults. This is why Beatrice and Benedick is much more appealing then Claudio and Hero by arguing with each other makes them more dominant in the play.
Benedick is the willful lord, recently returned from fighting in the wars, who vows that he will never marry. He engages with Beatrice in a competition to outwit, outsmart, and out-insult the other, but to his observant friends, he seems to feel some deeper emotion below the surface. Upon hearing Claudio and Don Pedro discussing Beatrice’s desire for him, Benedick vows to be “horribly...