Although I have not finished the entire play yet, my favorite part of the story has been Act II, Scene 3 and Act III, Scene 1 when both Benedick and Beatrice were tricked into falling in love with one another. The separate scenes where the men purposely lied with Benedick eavesdropping and where the women duped Beatrice were very well written.
It was funny to observe and compare all the techniques that were used during the conversations — the men created exaggerated stories about Beatrice’s passionate love for Benedick, such as how Beatrice is up “twenty times a night” (2.3.134) while scribbling the words “Benedick” and “Beatrice” over and over again. Later, the women worked together to basically beat down Beatrice’s self-esteem and stress how horrible she was for the way she acted towards a great man like Benedick. According to Ursula, “for shape, for bearing, argument, and valor” (3.1.96), Benedick was the best in Italy and Beatrice was too busy filled with scorn.
The question I pose is, did Beatrice and Benedick really fall in love with each other because of what they heard? Or was there already attraction before that?
I believe that Don Pedro, Claudio, Ursula, and Hero all played an important role in getting the relationship to progress at a faster pace. However, I don’t think they were the ones who can get the credit of planting the seeds of attraction. Despite the insults and the disdain they often showed one another (especially on Beatrice’s part), I sensed chemistry between them from the very beginning. Before Benedick ever appeared in the play, Beatrice was already denouncing him as a soldier/man of poor quality. Typically, women and men who find no interest in someone could care less about how another person was if they weren’t at least a little bit interested. Despite her insults, Benedick still alluded to Beatrice’s beauty during his discussion with Claudio early in the play.
Any thoughts or comments?
Although their past remains mysterious, it’s clear that Beatrice and Benedick were intensely involved with each other, and your assessment of how much can be ascribed to the intervention of Don Pedro, Hero, and the others, seems right to me. These scenes show us the positive consequences of overhearing, which balance the scenes where overhearing is mishearing and leads to the edge of disaster.
First i would like to say that although this post is a bit late in coming, that the title of this post really caught my attention, because it really does describe what happened to Benedick and Beatrice: An idea was planted in their heads by an outer source. I think in this scenario, that if the idea had come from themselves, they would not have acted upon their feelings. In fact it is pretty obvious that they already had feelings for each other. From the very beginning of the play when Beatrice inquires about Benedicks return from the war to the very end of the play where Benedick turns on his Best friend Claudio and is willing to fight to the death for Beatrice. The involvement of the other characters is what pushed Beatrice and Benedick into action, but the idea was already there..