Key Lines 2

Q: Benedick

Benedick has a reputation for being a misogynist, a __“tyrant”__ towards women and a bachelor. However he shows a level of self-awareness.

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Claudio and Benedick

These lines emphasises the importance of noting and also the subtle difference between simply looking (a quick glance) and paying close attention to detail (noting).

Key lines

CLAUDIO: Benedick, didst thou note the the daughter of Signor Leonato?
BENEDICK: I noted her not, but I looked on her.

Claudio

Claudio is a young soldier who, despite his prowess on the battlefield, is inexperienced in other affairs of the society in which he lives, including love and courtship.
He is keen to seek the approval and advice of his elder friends and colleagues.

The inferior sex

Significantly, he does not refer to Hero by her own name, rather she is “the daughter of Signor Leonato”.
The possessive language “of” represents how in Shakespearean times, women were seen as the inferior sex.

Patrilineal succession

Queen Elizabeth’s father, Henry VIII was so desperate for a male heir that he broke away from the Roman Catholic Church to enable him to divorce his first wife (Catherine of Aragon) and marry Anne Boleyn.
It was only very recently (in 2011) that the laws of succession to the British monarchy were changed to grant royal daughters the same equal rights as sons.

Noting

Benedick’s response continues the motif of noting that is so important to the play and also highlights the subtle difference between simply looking (a quick glance) and paying close attention to detail (noting).

Act 4, Scene 1

Structurally, this foreshadows the Friar’s assertion of Hero’s innocence in Act 4, Scene 1:
“By noting of the lady. I have mark'd
A thousand blushing apparitions
To start into her face, a thousand innocent shames
In angel whiteness beat away those blushes”

Benedick

Benedick has a reputation for being a misogynist, a “tyrant” towards women and a bachelor. However he shows a level of self-awareness.

Key line

BENEDICK: would you have me speak after my custom, as being a profess’d tyrant to their sex?

Reputation

Reputation is, it seems, also important to Benedick.
He is well known for his “custom” of being a misogynist or “profess’d tyrant” to women.
However, this also demonstrates a degree of self-awareness within Benedick’s character and this may be what enables him to change so willingly when he learns the ‘truth’ of Beatrice’s ‘love’ for him in Act 2, Scene 3.

Appearances and deception

Benedick’s “custom” also relates to the theme of appearances and deception.
Whilst he may appear to be a “tyrant” towards women and insistent on dying a bachelor (“for truly I love none”), it is simply a role or a part he plays.
An audience may interpret this a step further and suggest he is deceiving himself, too.

Claudio

Claudio refers to Hero as a "jewel", which to modern audiences may seem to objectify women.

Key line

CLAUDIO: Can the world buy such a jewel?

The “problem plays”

Towards the end of his life, Shakespeare wrote three plays (All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure and Troilus and Cressida) that have come to be known as the “problem plays”, so called due to them not always following the established conventions of comedy or tragedy.

Established conventions

Whilst Much Ado About Nothing has not been labelled in the same manner, the treatment of its female characters by their male counterparts does not always sit comfortably with a modern audience.

A compliment?

In simple, contemporary (Elizabethan) terms, Claudio is paying Hero a compliment by comparing her to a “jewel”.
It suggests she is beautiful and, as shown through his question, that her beauty surpasses all others and that she is priceless.

Objectification?

However, a modern - especially feminist - interpretation could regard this line as being both materialistic, as shown through the imagery of an expensive jewel, and objectifying towards women.
Claudio is attracted to Hero because of her physical attraction, nothing more.

Female restrictions

This problematic interpretation is sustained through Benedick’s response: “Yea, and a case to put it into”.
Again, initially it is likely this was intended by Shakespeare to demonstrate Benedick’s preference for Beatrice.
However, the idea of men limiting women’s freedom by keeping them in cases is not an image modern audiences would feel entirely comfortable about.