A Comparison of the Scenes in William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing

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A Comparison of the Scenes in William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing

In the play Much Ado about Nothing, two main characters Beatrice and

Benedick are gulled into believing that Beatrice loves Benedick and

Benedick loves Beatrice. The two scenes are parallel and set in the

same place, the orchard. The effect of this is that the audience

concentrate more on the other differences, for example how the

characters are treated, and not on the differences on set.

The opening speeches of both scenes create an important context for

the gulling. In Benedicks soliloquy he talks about how he despises

love, and describes his perfect women because he knows she is an

impossibility, although he knows he loves Beatrice really he just

doesn't want to swallow his pride. He sets himself up to be gulled

because he wants it to be true and he wants to believe it. In the next

scene Beatrice is also gulled to believe that Benedick loves her. This

scene is more of a plot because when Hero and Margaret start

discussing her. In this scene the two characters are a lot more

personal when criticizing Beatrice than Benedick. They talk about her

personality and how she acts a lot more than Benedick. In this scene

Beatrice uses very high flown elaborate poetic diction,

"Honeysuckle overgrown with pride,"

Is a reference to she uses to Beatrice because she thinks she is full

of herself and very bigheaded.

Both scenes use images of fishing and trapping, "stalk on, stalk on,

the fowl sits." Claudio says this to tell the others that Benedick is

ready to be taken in. Later Claudio says, "Bait the hook well, this

fish will bite." He is saying to the others to keep it up because

Benedick will believe it. At the end of the scene, Don Pedro says,

"let there be the same net spread for her," he uses another hunting

image to suggest doing the same thing to Beatrice.

In Beatrice's scene the same image of hunting is used, "and greedily

devoir the treacherous bait.

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