Much Ado About Nothing Beatrice And Benedick Analysis

Love is being able to understand someone wholly and to know how to compromise and communicate with them from a long history of knowing that person. Knowing someone for a long period of time allows some form of respect to build and fosters deeper communication to become present in a relationship. In all types of relationships with this love, there can be the same intensity and understanding of one another over a long period of time. In this way the transition between friend to lover can be very sly and the basic form of love between friends and lovers is very similar. This definition of love is supported in Much Ado About Nothing through the example of Benedick and Beatrice’s relationship. From just the first scene in this play, there are multiple

The ability to understand another person better also comes with ease of communication. The chemistry, banter and battles of wit between Beatrice and Benedick show how well the two communicate with one another and understand where the other is going with the next insult. Again, just in this first scene, as Benedick enters, there is, instead of skyrocketing tension, playful banter between old friends. Although Beatrice and Benedick throw mean jabs at one another, bantering back and forth, “So some gentleman or other shall scape a predestinate scratch’s face/Scratching could not make it worse, and ‘there such a face as your were/Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher/A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours“ (1.1.51-54), the content of these words demonstrate a lot about the love, i.e. understanding, between Beatrice and Benedick. In this quotation, Benedick goes straight for Beatrice’s beauty and ability to attract men and Beatrice shoots right back against Benedick’s own beauty. Then, Benedick goes for Beatrice's tendency to talk too much and ramble, for a woman in this time period, and again Beatrice shoots back calling Benedick a beast. Although Benedick’s jab at Beatrice’s tendency to talk too much is mean, Benedick does not completely hate this aspect about Beatrice. This is shown when Benedick is giving his opinion of Hero to Claudio, saying, “too little for a great praise” (1.1.68). Claudio had asked Benedick what he thought of the modest Hero, everything Beatrice is not, and Benedick implies that Hero is too meek for Benedick’s praise. This demonstrates that, although on the surface Benedick may not like Beatrice’s confidence, underneath, he could not admire a woman as meek as Hero. This evidence implies that although the banter between Beatrice and Benedick is harsh, neither take these arguments seriously, both