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Benedick's Attitude's to Love and Marriage

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Benedick's Attitude's to Love and Marriage
Benedick’s attitude to love & marriage in ‘‘Much Ado About Nothing’’ In the play ‘‘Much Ado About Nothing’’ by William Shakespeare, the character of Benedick shows mixed emotions towards loves and marriage throughout. In the two extracts we studied, Benedick shows a large contrast of opinions: In Act 1 Scene 1, Benedick portrays strong feelings of contempt towards love and marriage, whereas by Act 2 Scene 3, Benedick has completely changed his views and he is prepared to make the commitment and marry Beatrice, a woman he appeared to dislike in the beginning of the play and who seemed to have mutual feelings towards Benedick. Act 1 Scene 1 portrays that Benedick has a very negative attitude towards love and marriage. When conversing with Claudio about the supposedly beautiful and admirable Hero, to whom Claudio is in love with, Benedick makes the statement ‘’I noted her not, but I looked on her’’. Usually the two words ‘‘noted’’ and ‘‘looked’’ would have the same meanings, but Shakespeare is inferring that they have two different meanings behind them. What Benedick is declaring by this sentence is that he acknowledged the existence of Hero, but never really gave her a second glance, which implies that he does not find her desirable like Claudio does and is not interested in her. This suggests that maybe Benedick has an unusual attitude towards the opposite sex, as Hero is the woman that all the men are in love with and because of this, it may give everyone else the image that he is not looking for a relationship or is not interested in finding love. When questioned by Claudio about his apathy towards Hero, Benedick states ‘‘methinks she’s too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise and too little for a great praise’’. The message Benedick is trying to get across is that he thinks Hero has too many faults and imperfections; that he’s not good enough for her and doesn’t meet his standards. This also suggests that Hero might be too common and perhaps doesn’t


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