 Let's discuss the character of Beatrice in much ado about nothing. Now the character of Beatrice is interesting, of course she's one of the main characters in this play, however her outspokenness, her quick wittedness, as well as her frustration at the way society treats women is an interesting contrast to Hero her cousin. So whilst Hero is presented as a very stereotypical Elizabethan woman who's very passive, very modest, Beatrice actually goes against typical Elizabethan ideas about how women were. So she's able to really match Benedict's wit but also she rejects this notion of love and of marriage. She you know proclaims that if men maybe were made of some other kind of material other than just dust and clay then maybe she might marry them. So on the one hand we can see that she is actually quite similar to Benedict in the sense that she rejects the idea of love, the idea of marriage as being the only role women should play. We can also see she's very loyal towards her cousin so when Claudio basically denounces her says that she has been unfaithful, Beatrice appears to be very very loyal and she insists on her cousin's innocence even before it's unveiled that of course her cousin was innocent the whole time. Of course what you want to do when you're writing about her character is to talk about her as an interesting contrast to Hero but equally her character of course contrasts Benedict's character because they're very similar initially but equally at the ending okay so the way they kind of scorn love and talk about love is something that they don't really care about it really belies a desire that they both have for actually finding true love. Now when it comes to writing an essay on this or preparing for a coursework or exams it's of course important to remember key quotations related to Beatrice's character because she is one of the main characters in the play so as you can see behind me I have selected all the relevant quotations to remember for her character if you're writing about what to do about nothing and you're revising for it either for your coursework or exam so let's get started on the first quotation related to Beatrice's character. Now she states and of course this is tied into the element of comedy and also we can see here that she's very witty she states God help the noble Claudio if he have caught the Benedict it will cost him a thousand pound error of bc order and of course here what she's saying is oh my gosh I hope Claudio has not been infected and influenced by Benedict's ideas and she describes Benedict almost as this disease this horrible disease that people should avoid. Now the word level analysis you want to do here is firstly the exclamatory sentence which is a structural point to remember so this is what she's saying God help the noble Claudio with an exclamatory sentence also you have a litteration of he have and finally the hyperbole a thousand pounds of course here she's basically saying you know it's going to cost Claudio so much money to even rid himself of the influence of Benedict and of course here we can kind of see that she's always making fun of Benedict because that could underlight a desire that she actually has for him. The second quotation to bear in mind with her character is when she states I thank God in my cold blood I am of your humour for that and of course this is when she's bantering with Benedict and they're both saying oh I don't love you know love is very stupid and so Benedict basically says he can't fall in love and he doesn't really care about falling in love and Beatrice essentially in response is saying well thank god I'm also very similar to you in that sense because I too don't really care about love. Now the word level analysis you want to do here for this quotation is firstly the adjective cold blood so here what we're seeing is Beatrice is basically framing herself as somebody who actually is very unfeeling she does not care about men she doesn't care about love. The other technique to point out is the repetition of I here okay so she what this does is it shows how Beatrice is really emphatic and insisting that she does not really care about falling in love in fact she really doesn't want to fall in love. The other key quotation for her character is when she states I'd rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man so he loves me so of course here again in this is still part of the same banter that she has with Benedict she's basically saying you know I'd rather everything but somebody actually you know confessing that he loves me and asking for my hand in marriage and again here we can see that she's somewhat frustrated by the role that women had to play in society do bear in mind that during that Elizabethan era this is when Shakespeare was writing women's roles were greatly restricted and women were seen as almost waiting for marriage marriage was seen as this prize that women were waiting for the ring being a symbol of a man being committed to them so that they can basically all they'll just do is just have babies and look after the family so we can see here also there's an element of frustration from Beatrice's character because she's maybe frustrated at the very narrow role that she is expected to play as an Elizabethan woman and she's rallying against that she's pushing back against that and saying no I reject this role now the other key quotation uh so rather going back to this uh and in terms of obviously her saying that she doesn't really care about a man swearing he loves her now the word level analysis to do for this one before we move on to the next quotation is firstly the onomatopoeia bark so she's basically saying the sound of a dog barking is sweeter than a man confessing that he loves her and the other word level analysis you want to do is the essence of a in at a than a man and again here what we can see is Beatrice is basically as I mentioned before running against this idea that you know all women want to hear is a man confessing his love for her so that they you know she can get married and start having babies now the other quotation for her character is when she states not till god make men of some other metal than earth here what she is saying is that she is not ever going to consider marrying any man until or unless god makes them of any other material apart from clay and dust of course this is relating to the idea in the bible in the book of Genesis that man was made of clay and she's basically saying that fundamentally men have something wrong with them something that she detests and if that's fundamentally changed then maybe maybe she can instead of falling in love and marrying a man and trusting a man now the word level analysis you want to do here is firstly the alliteration of M in make and men and of course also the metaphor earth to talk about how men are made of dust and she's basically saying the material that men are made of is negative hence why she does not trust men the other quotation for Beatrice's character is when she hears of this denunciation by Claudio so this is when Claudio denounces hero on their wedding and she is horrified that Claudio would ever think that hero would be unfaithful she states oh on my soul my cousin is the lie now this is an exclamatory sentence bear in mind exclamatory sentence is a structural technique but it's still important what this exclamatory sentence does is it shows Beatrice again she is frustrated at how men have the liberty to treat women and to really believe anything that can be said against women but also we can see here she's very loyal to her cousin because she understands that hero is actually a very blameless person okay so we can see this deep sense of loyalty that she has towards her cousin which makes her Beatrice a very admirable character in addition of course you've got the repetition of my in my soul and my cousin so this repetition of this pronoun shows again Beatrice is very emphatic she believes hero is innocent she's not done all of this things that you know Don John is saying she really really strongly is against that idea of course she also now you want to contrast this quotation where she goes from you know professing that she sees Benedict as a disease she doesn't really care about love then she changes of course this is when she realizes that Benedict does love her and she states I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest and of course this is supposed to be a hilarious kind of comedic element in her speech and again this is showing how witty she is now the word level analysis you want to do here especially the declarative sentence remember declarative sentences sentence that states a fact feeling a mood so she says I love you and here of course we can see that actually she did have a desire for Benedict and she's happy that Benedict likes her okay now the final quotation and this is tying into when she talks about how she feels hero is falsely accused she states sweet hero she's wronged she's slandered she's undone now of course again here we can see that Beatrice is really angry at how a woman's reputation can just be so quickly unraveled based on her virginity and based on her sexuality and her chastity the second element of course here is she also believes that hero is actually still a virgin she's still she was very loyal to Claudio so she's really angry at this okay so do bear in mind that there's really some elements of feminism in Beatrice's character where she's basically questioning why women being treated the way they are in an Elizabethan society now the word level analysis you want to do here is firstly the exclamatory sentence sweet hero here she's really horrified because you know she feels like these slanderous allegations against hero are totally unfounded the other thing you want to do is to focus on the word level analysis of wronged slandered undone listed and this is rule of three okay so she we can see here that Beatrice is very very emphatic that her cousin is innocent okay so that's it when it comes to key quotations to remember and of course to memorize if you're sitting in an exam on what to do about nothing and indeed even if you're writing about Beatrice's character contrasting her as an interesting female figure in this play thank you so much for listening