Much Ado About Nothing Beatrice And Benedick Comparison

In Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing, there are the usual characters that show up in most of Shakespeare’s pieces. For instance, the characters Hero and Claudio could easily be compared to Romeo and Juliet. Both Hero and Juliet are innocent, quiet, and beautiful young women who fall in love instantly without conversing with the other person. Likewise, Claudio and Romeo decide to marry these women within twenty-four hours. Beatrice and Benedick are both witty characters; neither ever lets the other say anything without countering it with a pun or criticism. Much ado about Nothing has focused on the two love stories between Benedick-Beatrice and Claudio-Hero. The Claudio- Hero and the Benedick- Beatrice love stories are interwoven in Much Ado about Nothing through a series of parallels and contrasts in characterization, in dialogue, and in plot structure.

Hero and Beatrice have known one another since they are cousins and the same goes for Claudio and Benedick, as they have both fought for the Prince. Beatrice and Hero are cousins and all four characters

are learning to categorize? properly and to estimate each other’s true value. Throughout Much Ado About Nothing, both couple’s ability for love will be tested. Throughout the play, both couple’s ability to love will be tested. In the beginning, Benedick had a bad “feeling” about Hero and that she will break Claudio’s heart. Benedick was completely against the idea that Claudio has fallen in love with Hero and tried to deny the truth.
Beatrice: I pray you, is Signor Montanto returned from the ware or not?
Messenger: I know none of the name, lady. There was none such in the army of any sort.
Leonato: What is he that you ask for, niece?
Hero: My cousin means Signor Benedick of Padua (1, 1, 25-30) In the beginning of Act 1, Scene 1 lines (25-30), all four “romantic” young people are introduced. Beatrice gives remarks about Benedick by referring to him as Signor Montanto. Beatrice cleverly mocks and insults Benedick. A messenger from Don Pedro defends Benedick as an honorable and virtuous man, but Leonato explains that Beatrice and Benedick carry on a “merry war” of wits with one another, trading taunts whenever they meet. Hero then explains that ‘Signor Montanto’ is Benedick himself. This clearly indicated that Beatrice and Hero, although they may be cousins, they know enough about one another to understand who they are talking about.
Throughout the story, both couples have focused on the topic love. Both couples are educated aristocrats and the topic of marriage is present throughout the play. During the story, it shows both sides of a female and male when it come to the topic of love. Both Claudio and Benedick speaking about their fears of cuckoldry. In the beginning of the story, both couples would speak indirectly but near the end, both couples make remarks directly. Although, throughout the story, both couples confess their love but Claudio and Hero usually speak in verse and Benedick and Beatrice speak in prose. Radically, Benedick and Beatrice change their style and voice of text but Claudio and Hero keep it simple.
Claudio: In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I locked on.
Benedick: I can see yet without spectacles, and I see no such matter.
There’s her cousin, and she was not possessed with a fury,
exceeds her as much in beauty as the first of May doth the
last of December. But I hope you have no intent to turn husband,
have you?
Claudio: I would scare trust myself, though I had sworn the contrary,
if Hero would be my wife. (1,1, 148-154)

Claudio: That I love her, I feel
Don Pedro: That she is worthy, I know
Benedick: That I neither feel how she should be loved
Nor know how she should be worth is the opinion that fire cannot melt out of me.
I will die in at the stake. (1,1,179-184). After greeting Don Pedro and his mates, Claudio and Benedick who are close friends laid their eyes on Hero and Beatrice. Later on, as described throughout the evidence, Act 1, Scene 1, Lines 148-154, Claudio shyly asks Benedick what he thinks of Hero, announcing that he has fallen in love with her. Benedick jokingly plays down Hero’s beauty, teasing Claudio for thinking about becoming a friendly husband. But when Don Pedro returns to look for his friends, Benedick tells him Claudio’s secret, and Don Pedro approves highly of the match. Benedick explains that Hero is not lovable nor worthy enough for Claudio. Claudio immediately begins talking about his love for Hero in a very traditional manner, prompting Benedick to rant against women in general and Hero in particular. Claudio readily accepts Don Pedro's offer to speak both to Hero and to her father for him. During this planning, Claudio determines that Hero is Leonato's only heir.

Not only does this story describe the different attributes for love, but it also shows the true definition of friendship. Both couples are close friends and therefore harmonized because of the friendship between the two couples and the couple’s love story. Both couples are harmonized until crisis occurs between Claudio and Hero. The crisis in the Claudio-Hero plot describes the refusal and accusing of Hero and extended those issues into the Benedick-Beatrice plot. Another issues that appears is when Antonia, Leonato and Benedick challenged Claudio. Near the end of the story, both couples prepare for their double-wedding, after Claudio discovers that he will be marrying Hero after all.

Leonato: Come, Friar Francis, be brief, only to the plain form of marriage, and you shall recount their particular duties afterwards.
Friar Francis: You come hither, my lord, to marry this lady?
Claudio: No
Leonato: To be married to her. – Friar, you come to marry her?
Friar Francis: If either of you know any inward impediment why you should not be conjoined, charge on your souls to utter it………
Friar Francis: Know you any, count?..............
Claudio: Sweet Prince, you learn me noble thankfulness. —There, Leonato, take her back again. Give not this rotten orange to your friend.
She’s but the sign and semblance of her honor.
Behold how like a maid she blushes here!
Leonato: What do you mean, my lord?
Claudio: Not to be married. Not to knit my soul to an approved wanton.
Claudio: Out on thee, seeming! I will write against it. You seem to me as Dian in her orb,
Don Pedro: What should I speak? I stand dishonored, that have gone about to link my dear friend to a common stale. (4,1, 1-62).
Leonato suggests that Friar Francis use a short wedding ceremony to marry Claudio and Hero.

In answer to the friar's first question, "You come . . . to marry this lady?" Claudio answers "No." Leonato assumes Claudio is joking and explains that the Friar is marrying them, that Claudio is being married to Hero.The friar proceeds and soon comes to the question about knowing any "impediment why you should not be conjoined." Claudio challenges Hero, Leonato nervously tries to move the ceremony along, but Claudio chooses to delay further, finally condemning Hero as a "rotten orange," blushing with guilt, a "wanton," "greedier than Venus". Don Pedro joins the judgement, calling her a "common stale" (a whore). Claudio asks Hero who appeared with her in her window last night, and she denies any such appearance. Don Pedro reports that he, Claudio, and Don John all saw her there. Hero faints, and the three accusers

leave.

In conclusion, Shakespeare uses parallels and counterpoints to interweave two love stories, one based on convention, the other on invention, in a pattern that begins in harmony, splits in crisis, and resolves in reconciliation.