Much Ado About Nothing Beatrice Analysis

Lillie Mae Graves
English 2120
James Hirsh
2/17/2015
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Character Analysis of Beatrice in Shakespeare’s, “Much Ado About Nothing”

One of the most intriguing characters from Shakespeare’s 1958 comedy, ‘Much Ado About Nothing’, is Beatrice, niece of Leonato governor of Messina. An intelligent, witty and uninhibited woman, Beatrice is an almost exact opposite of her cousin Hero, much like other women, a modest and innocent woman. Even though the play’s chief plot is that of the innocent Hero being falsely accused of promiscuity, Shakespeare shows through the character of Beatrice a subplot. An analysis of the character of Beatrice will reveal how she contrasts to what is to be expected of women in that time as well as

This outspokenness is foreign to this time period because women were supposed to be seen and not heard and rarely seen at that. Beatrice shows that she is not constrained by the stiff social conventions that it leads one to believe that Shakespeare found himself averse to having his heroine submit to any form of male superiority. Her eventual decision to become romantically involved was the result of some trickery on the part of some other characters. Furthermore, females were able to speak their minds but their thoughts and ideas were shaped by men as made evident in the case of marriage.
Hero had very little say in marrying her father going so far as to plan her wedding date for her. Beatrice openly describes how she does not care to be married because of her desire to maintain independence. She refuses to give up her freedom or submit to the will of a controlling husband. She elucidated to the impossibility getting married when speaking with Leonato and a few others, she

Much like Beatrice, Benedict had no interest in marriage initially in the play. This shared cynicism regarding love and general distrust of the opposite sex draws the two in to countless oral comedic battles. Both of them equally possess the ability to take the others jokes with a grain of salt yet they maintained a mutual dislike for each other. Beatrice does not hesitate in her speech and shows great pride in her own personal humor. Beatrice though is not as hardened as she might seem. When she finds out, through the treachery of Hero and Margaret, that Benedick is secretly in love with her, she opens herself up to the feelings and her perceived weaknesses of love. She lets us see the vulnerable side of herself when