Christa Scheffler

Knowledge of Self

In Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare, the characters involved seem to struggle with their identities. Specifically, Beatrice seems at odds with herself. Is she an independent woman with incredible wit? Or is she a submissive woman who listens to her family? Is she a woman tortured by her past? Or is she someone whose emotions change easily? At different points in the play, she is all of these things. But because of this, it is hard to fully understand who Beatrice really is. The way Shakespeare portrays her makes it seem as if Beatrice doesnt fully understand herself, either. This lack of understanding leads her to be manipulated by her friends and family into getting into a relationship with Benedick that she may or may not have wanted to be in. At the beginning of the play, Beatrice seems to dislike Benedick. Leontes, her uncle, states that there is a merry war betwixt Signor Benedick and her (Beatrice) theres a skirmish of wit between them, (1.1.59-61). The two constantly argue and bicker, with the intent to hurt one another with words. According to Maurice Hunt, a scholar, Beatrices and Benedicks speech toward one another causes each of them much more suffering and public embarrassment concerning their hidden feelings for each other than relatively unambiguous, trusted words of affection would, (Hunt). This seems to be true, because at the mention of the others name, Beatrice uses her wit to insult Benedick. When talking about his new friendship with Claudio, Beatrice says that Benedick will hang upon him like a disease, (1.1.81). And during their first encounter of the play when Benedick insinuates that she would harm a man who admitted his love for her, she replies, Scratching could not make it worse an twere such a face 1

as yours were, (1.1130-131). Not only does she insult his manhood by calling him ugly, but she does not deny the fact that she would maim a man who loves her. Throughout the play, Beatrice states she does not believe in marriage and will not fall in love. She tells her cousin Hero: wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinquepace. The first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch/ jig the wedding mannerly modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry. And then comes repentance, and with his bad legs falls into the cinquepace faster and faster till he sink into his grave. (1.3.65-72) Through this simile-ridden speech, the reader can see that Beatrice does not think highly of love or marriage. She sees courting, or love, as a rushed affair. Marriage itself, to her, is something established in tradition and holds no true meaning of love. Then she mentions repentance, which shows she believes everyone regrets their marriage after it is too late to reverse it. In fact, she tells Benedick, the supposed lover of hers, that she is grateful she is of the same disposition as him about love; She says, I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me, (1.1.123-126). The annoyance of her dog barking is more tolerable than the annoyance she would feel if a man proclaimed his love for her. According to Stephen Dobranski, scholar, it seems as if Beatrices unwillingness to love or be loved stems from a past relationship that she had with Benedick. In the play itself, Beatrice does tell Don Pedro very briefly of her past with Benedick; he lent [his heart to] me a while, and 2

I gave him use for it, a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me, with false dice. Therefore your grace may well say I have lost it, (2.1.260-263). Through this explanation, the reader learns that while Benedick and Beatrice did indeed have a past together, it is unclear what exactly occurred. Dobranski believes that in this speech, Beatrice states three things. One, that she and Benedick had sexual relations; the word use denotes employment or maintenance for sexual purposes, (Dobranski). Two, these relations may or may not have ended up with the abortion or death of a child. The double heart in the speech pertains to the child and lost it pertains to its death (Dobranski). Three, that Benedick refused to marry Beatrice; false dice, and earlier in the play a jades trick, meant he tricked her into thinking he would marry her and then rescinded, (Dobranski). The ambiguity in Beatrices speech only lets the reader know that she ended up being hurt by the events; [t]he irony lies in the plays title it specifically describes Beatrices suffering she endured much ado and she has come away with nothing, (Dobranski). This past, if it did occur, offers more proof to how she has been used by others. Because of this past hurt, Beatrice has now been manipulated to adapt her wit to compensate for her misgivings about love and men. According to Maurice Hunt, scholar, speech is used to assert power over others, (Hunt). Because men have more power than women do in society, Beatrice has begun to use this banter-esque way of speaking in order to compensate for her lack of power. She does this by taking the first strike away from others; Beatrice explains to Don Pedro that she puts [Benedick] down so I would not he should do me lest I should prove the mother of fools, (2.1.264-267). She feels that by letting Benedick get the first quip in 3

to make her feel badly, she would be a fool. Normally, this talk from a woman would elicit negative feelings from others in society. But, apparently, Beatrices actions are not regarded negatively; Don Pedro tells her, Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, (2.1.310-311). According to Hunt, [t]he socially presumptuous badinage that a woman like Beatrice engages in with men would be offensive in Hero, whereas a silent wiseacre like Beatrice would deprive him and his comrades of amusement... (Hunt). Beatrices language amuses her male counterparts, so she is allowed to continue it. When adapting this manly speech, she sometimes takes it too far; her wit is either too blunt or ends up hurting someones feelings (usually Benedicks). When her wit is too blunt, it leads to her manipulation by anothers hand. For example, in response to Don Pedros request for her hand in marriage, she tells him, Your grace is too costly to wear every day I was born to speak all mirth and no matter, (2.1.307-309). According to Dobranski, [s]he is pretending that she is light-hearted, but her explanation also implies that she cannot speak any matter: she suggests that, because she was born a woman, everything she says is interpreted as mirth or as a woman she must cloak her real feelings with humor, (Dobranksi). In this context, a woman must respond accordingly to being asked about for marriage, and she has not done that. In order to cover up her terrible mistake of telling Don Pedro that he is too costly to wear every day, she must say that she is only capable of making jokes. Whether her real intention was to hurt Don Pedro with her words or simply to make a joke is unclear. But by making this joke to a prince, one of nobility, Leontes manipulates her into leaving by asking her to look to those

things, which to her means go away. By doing this, Leontes prevents further damaging things said to the prince, but also asserts his dominance over Beatrice. At the turning point of the play, readers start to see more prominently how Beatrice is manipulated by her friends and family. Beatrices and Benedicks constant bickering lead Don Pedro and her family to think that Beatrice has tender feelings towards Benedick. Don Pedro thus creates a plan to bring the two together; I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules labours, which is to bring Signor Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection thone with thother, (2.1.341-344). His plan is to manipulate the two of them to fall in love. He, Claudio, and serving boys stand in the garden and speak of how much Beatrice loves Benedick in secret. And in turn, Hero and her serving women stand in the garden and speak of how much Benedick loves Beatrice in secret. In order to convincingly sell Benedick to Beatrice, Hero is very artful about what she and the other serving women are meant to say. She starts out by talking only of Benedick, attempting to praise him more than ever man did merit, (3.1.19). By doing this, Beatrice starts to see Benedick as the girls say they see him. Next, she tells her serving woman that Benedick should keep silent about his love because Beatrice has too much pride to go back on everything shes said up to date. She says, her wit values itself so highly that to her all matter else seems weak. She cannot love, nor take no shape nor project of affection, she is so self-endeared, (3.1.52-56). This allows Beatrice to see how her masculine way of speaking does not benefit her, and how it leads to an image of arrogance rather than one of self-confidence. Lastly, she tells her

serving woman that if she were to talk about Benedicks love to Beatrice herself, that she would mock me into air, O, she would laugh me out of myself, press me to death with wit, (3.1.7576). By doing this, Hero has effectively admonished Beatrice, letting her know that her wit makes her unapproachable. The effect of all these things will be a muted wit from Beatrice, and an admittance of her feelings for Benedick; I will requite [Benedick],/ taming my wild heart to thy loving hand, (3.1.111-112). Hero has effectively manipulated Beatrice into being more womanly and open to the thought of love. As stated earlier, Beatrice dislikes Benedick. Or she did, until Hero made her believe she loves him. In Act Four, Beatrice and Benedick admit their love for each other. Beatrice says, I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest, (4.1.287-288). In her own words, she has stopped resisting her love for Benedick. It is hard to tell whether she genuinely feels this way, or if she has suffered from Heros manipulations. But it seems that the love is genuine, because later in the play, the two are ousted by their peers and their love notes are divulged to each other; Their secret writings arrest their words for all to read, conclusively trapping them and giving them the blessed relief of being able to acknowledge their genuine but hithero denied love. A miracle! Heres our own hands against our hearts, (Hunt). Everything Beatrice said she believed at the beginning of the play has been reversed by the manipulation of Hero and Don Pedro. She once said that she would never accept love from another man, and yet she accepts Benedicks love. She once said that she thought of Benedick as a detestable disease, but then loves him in return. She once said that marriage was often regretted

and that she would not do it, but she marries. Whatever past relationship she had with Benedick is either rectified or forgotten, because she seems to have fallen in love. She does admit to being manipulated at the end of the play; I would not deny you (marriage), but by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion (5.4.94-95). This admittance seems to mean that she has accepted her familys views about love and marriage and changed her views to match. If this is the case, it means that Beatrice is susceptible to coercion. The consequences of her actions throughout the play are varied. Her disbelief in marriage and unwillingness to love led to tense conversations and possible heart ache between her and Benedick. But the rekindling of her belief in the two things led to her marriage and possible happiness with a family. But if she can be convinced that love and marriage arent as negative as she originally supposed, whats to say that she cant be convinced of the opposite at a later date? Through this, Beatrice proves that she doesnt know herself. If she did, she would be more definitive about how she feels about the man she ends up marrying and would be less likely to change her mind about such things.

Works Cited Dobranski, Stephen B. "Children of the Mind: Miscarried Narratives in Much Ado about Nothing." Studies in English Literature, 1500 - 1900 38.2 (1998): 233-50. ProQuest Research Library. Web. 5 Dec. 2012. Hunt, Maurice. "The Reclamation of Language in Much Ado about Nothing." Studies in Philology 97.2 (2000): 165-91.ProQuest Research Library. Web. 5 Dec. 2012. Shakespeare, William. The Oxford Sakespeare: The Complete Works. Ed. Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor. Second ed. N.p.: Oxford UP, 2005. Print.