Much Ado About Nothing

Benedick is a successful soldier and close companion of Don Pedro and Claudio. Unlike Claudio, he lacks respect for the Prince’s noble authority and adopts a cynical, somewhat mocking demeanour toward the outside world – although there is an undercurrent of vulnerability beneath this bravado. He shares Beatrice’s scornful view of marriage and seems exasperated with Claudio’s sudden decision to marry Hero. However, the aborted wedding causes him to reconsider his relationship to Beatric, and his place within the chauvinist masculine world in which her cousin was unfairly slandered.

From the beginning of the play, it is clear that Benedick and Claudio share a brotherly relationship: he is the first person Claudio confides in when he finds himself smitten with Hero. In contrast to Claudio, who is afraid to trust his own judgement, Benedick speaks with the natural arrogance of one who thinks he understands everything. In response to Claudio’s outpouring of superficial desire, he drily replies “I can see yet without spectacles and I see no such matter,” to.

However, Shakespeare suggests that both are distorted ways of seeing: while Claudio may be naïve and gullible, Benedick represses his obvious attraction to Beatrice as he clings to the sexual and personal freedom afforded to him as a young bachelor.

Partly, this disdain for marriage is motivated by the same cuckoldry anxiety that proves Claudio’s undoing – Benedick’s lines in this scene are peppered with references to horns, a traditional symbol of cuckoldry. Like the archetypal Elizabethan fool (Beatrice calls him “the prince’s jester”), Benedick inhabits a space outside social convention: his clowning behaviour is markedly less serious than his fellow courtesans and he is reluctant to follow societal norms by submitting to a ‘good’ marriage. Consider his monologue in Act 2 Scene 3, where he expresses his frustration with Claudio’s sudden infatuation. Where once Benedick and Claudio laughed at the “shallow follies” of men who fall in love, Claudio has now become, in Benedick’s eyes, “the argument of his own scorn,” the butt of the jokes he once made. Further, Benedick fears that “love may transform me to an oyster,” creating the idea of a brooding lover who clams up, oyster-like, no longer full of wit and mirth.

Of course, the main purpose of this speech is to set up the dramatic irony of the following exchange, where Benedick is so struck by Don Pedro’s (false) revelation that Beatrice loves him that he declares “I will be horribly in love with her.” Part of what attracts him to Beatrice is her similar scorn for social convention. Consider this exchange from Act 2 Scene 1:

Beatrice: We must follow the leaders.
Benedick: In every good thing.
Beatrice: Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning.

In this context, Beatrice is suggesting they must move on in the courtly dance in which they are taking part. However, the second, underlying meaning is that Beatrice will only follow social convention so far – she would not, for example, follow the Prince’s noble authority if it led to moral wrongdoing (“any ill”).
This seemingly innocuous exchange becomes relevant in Act 4, where Don Pedro and Claudio falsely accuse Hero of infidelity. When Benedick tells Beatrice “surely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged,” he becomes the only male character to believe Hero. He opposes Leonato, Don Pedro (his former commanding officer), and the misogynist mores which dictate Hero must be guilty until proven innocent. It is unsurprising, then, that in response to Beatrice’s demand that he kill Claudio, he initially declares “Ha! Not for the wide world.”
 
However, Benedick has been transformed by love and reluctantly realises that, as actions speak louder than words, he must challenge Claudio to a duel: he declares “enough, I am engaged, I will challenge him.” Where before Benedick
was the “prince’s jester,” he now spurns the Prince and Claudio’s “gossip-like humour” and bears his challenge straight and to the point. Since this is a comedy, the fateful duel never materialises, and the fractious conflict is replaced by the joy of a double wedding. Paradoxically, Benedick takes on the assertive role of the husband which he earlier seemed to criticise, stopping Beatrice’s mouth with a kiss and ordering the musicians to “strike up.”