Beatrice In William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing

In Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing, the opening scene is originally reflected in the renaissance time when the soldiers came back from war, also the excitement of the impatient women as prince Aragon arrives. The play acts with all the romantic comedy in the structure; where as the central plot revolves around two pairs of young lovers. The necessary outcome of the play is marriage and celebration, but there must be a dramatic threat along the way. The character Beatrice brings verbal and humorous wit, whereas when Benedick arrives it changes the verbal dexterity into physical wit. In the opening scene of the play, the audience gets their first impression of Beatrice. At first, in the scene, we see that it is Leonato and the messenger
This also shows the audience that Beatrice is the type of person who doesn’t care or worry about people’s opinions towards her. This quote shows how Beatrice disdainfully talks behind Benedick. She also gives Benedick the mocking sobriquet “Signor Montanto” as she challenges the gender stereotype. We can spot a very important thing about Beatrice straight away just by the first line Shakespeare gives her. This line is basically an insult towards Benedick. Shakespeare uses very clever words in the play that most of the characters say. The word ‘Montanto’ that Beatrice says means bigheaded and full of one self. This shows what Beatrice thinks of Benedick, that he’s vain and only thinks about himself. Also, using the word ‘Signor’ in front of ‘Montanto’ makes the insult far more worse, because she’s being sarcastic. This gives the audience a small idea of what Beatrice thinks of Benedick. She clearly doesn’t seem to like him very much and we can tell this by the fact she insults him. This is depicted in Kenneth Branough’s film version as Beatrice is physically sitting alone, which accepts the patriarchal hegemony as she doesn’t want to celebrate with anyone. This suggests that Benedick is nothing more than a roué undermines and emasculates
Also, she is the first one to attack with the insults by saying, “I wonder that you will still be talking signor Benedick, nobody marks you.” Beatrice says this sarcastically towards Benedick. The word “marks” means “noticing” in modern language. She is basically saying that no one is listening to him or to what he has to say, that she’s curious in why he’s still talking seeing as nobody is interested. However, this is a bit hypocritical, because it shows us, the audience, that Beatrice is clearly interested in what Benedick is saying, because she interrupts her way in. It is perhaps her way of getting his attention; she wants him to notice her, so she interrupts his conversations and insults him. Undoubtedly, Benedick retaliates back at her and he does this by saying “what my dear lady disdain! Are you yet living?” He says this in a patronizing way towards Beatrice. The word “disdain” means that you look down on people and you think you’re better than them, and by adding “lady” means he’s making fun of her, saying she’s the very best at looking down on people. Benedick is saying that she’s stuck up, and also, the insult he used has the same meaning to the insult Beatrice once said about him “signor Montanto”. This shows that they both have very similar personalities because of the fact they said the same thing. This is shown in the film version as Benedick approaches the centre, physically