Benedick 1
English Lit: AQA GCSE Much Ado About Nothing, topic 9.1.3
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.
"the tabor and the pipe”
Act 2, Scene 3 key lines spoken by Benedick.
Key line
- “I have know when there was no music in [Claudio] but the drum and the fife, and now he had rather hear the tabor and the pipe”
Instruments
- The contrast between the “drum and the fife”, instruments associated with war, and the more lyrical, romantic “tabor and pipe” illustrate both the change in Claudio’s character now he has fallen in love and is to marry Hero and one of the key differences between his character and Benedick’s.
Courtly love
- Benedick does not understand the conventions of courtly love.
- He tells Beatrice that they were “too wise to woo peaceably” in Act 5, Scene 2.
- Romantic love does not come easily to Benedick and this is perhaps why he is so surprised and concerned by the changes he now detects in Claudio.
Test yourself on Benedick 1
When does Benedick learn the ‘truth’ of Beatrice’s ‘love’ for him?
Which character says “for truly I love none” in Act 1, Scene 1?
Which four instruments does Benedick reference in Act 2, Scene 3?
Which character does not understand the conventions of courtly love?