Much Ado About Nothing. Love,Hate & Marriage

Essay by MaelstromUniversity, Bachelor'sA, October 1996

download word file, 6 pages 4.2

Downloaded 131 times

Love, Hate & Marriage:

An Analytical Essay on the Relationship of Beatrice & Benedick

In William Shakespeare's comedy 'Much Ado About Nothing', the characters

Beatrice and Benedick are involved in what could only be called a 'love/hate'

relationship. The play is a classic example of this type of relationship, and allows us

to view one from the outside looking in. This gives us the chance to analyse the type

of relationship that at one time or another we all have been, or will be, involved in.

Both Beatrice and Benedick are strong-willed, intelligent characters, who fear

that falling in love will lead to a loss of freedom and eventually heartbreak. This causes

them to deny their love for each other and it is only through the machinations of other

characters in the play that their true feelings emerge. When these feelings are finally

acknowledged, both characters are changed, but the changes are subtle.

They are

neither drastic nor monumental. Both remain who they were before, but now they the

two are one. They gain everything and lose nothing. Whether or not their love would

have bloomed without the help of their friends, we will never know.

In the beginning of the play, Beatrice and Benedick do not seem to like each

other very much, if at all. This can be seen in Act I; Scene I, (line 121-131):

BENEDICK: God keep your ladyship still in that mind! so some gentleman or other

shall 'scape a predestinate scratched face.

BEATRICE: Scratching could not make it worse, an 'twere such a face as yours were.

BENEDICK: Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.

BEATRICE: A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.

BENEDICK: I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a

continuer. But...