Summary
English Lit: AQA GCSE Much Ado About Nothing, topic 6.2.1
Act 4, Scene 1 (Part 2)
After Leonato’s reluctant acceptance of the Friar’s plan, Benedick and Beatrice are left on stage. The audience know they have decided to requite each other’s love, and eagerly anticipate their first conversation since the end of Act 2.
Character development
- Benedick’s character development continues as he sensitively asks “Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?”
- His concern for Beatrice and the wronged Hero seems genuine, even if he struggles to fulfil the role of a conventional romantic.
Romantic gestures
- Benedick does, however, seem aware of some of the stereotypically romantic gestures when he tells Beatrice to “bid me do anything for thee.”
- Her request to “kill Claudio” has the potential to send the play further into tragedy.
Revenge
- Beatrice’s tirade against Claudio highlights her frustration at the limitations imposed upon her gender by the society in which she lives.
- She wants bloody revenge (“I would eat his heart in the marketplace”) for the wrongs done to Hero and could be viewed as a proto-feminist long before the concept even existed.
Proto-feminist
- However, at the same time, Beatrice acknowledges she is unable to exact this vengeance as she is a woman (“Oh that I were a man”) and must request Benedick do it for her.
Benedick’s change
- In accepting Beatrice’s request, Benedick’s wondering that love may transform him (Act 2, Scene 3) has been confirmed.
- He no longer acts as was once his “custom as a profess’d tyrant to their sex” and now acts as a chivalrous defender of female honour.
Test yourself on Summary
Why does Beatrice have to ask Benedick to “kill Claudio” in Act 4, Scene 1?