Benedick: The Confirmed Bachelor Who Confirms Nothing
First appears: Act 1, Scene 1
Benedick is a career soldier who has publicly sworn off women and marriage, loudly and often, to anyone who will listen. Act 2, Scene 3 is his undoing. Tricked into believing Beatrice loves him, he reverses everything he has ever said on the subject inside twelve lines. The speed of the reversal is the joke, and it is a very good one.
His partnership with Beatrice is the play's real love story. Claudio and Hero are more conventional; Benedick and Beatrice fight their way into affection. When he chooses Beatrice over Claudio in Act 4, it costs him a real friendship.
Shakespeare makes him slightly ridiculous (the toothache scene, the terrible sonnet he writes to Beatrice) without making him contemptible. He is foolish in the way people are foolish when they are genuinely in love for the first time.
Key Scenes
Famous Quotes
“When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.”
Benedick — Act 2, Scene 3
“I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is not that strange?”
Benedick — Act 4, Scene 1
Themes
Other Characters in Much Ado About Nothing
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