Much Ado about Nothing, by William Shakespeare is a comedy that tell the story of the bringing together of two couples; Claudio and Hero and Beatrice and Benedick and all the tribulation it brings with it.

It is the intention of this essay to look at how Shakespeare uses language to develop the characters from the passage in Act one, scene one and to look at his presentation of dramatic contrasts in the extract and asses their important in the unfolding comedy.

The tone of the passage can be seen as being fairly childish. This can mainly be seen from the dialogue between Beatrice and Benedick, which is a quickly paced, war of words in which they insult each others personalities and looks. This can be seen when Beatrice says "Scratching could not make it worse, an `twere such a face as yours were" . However from this it...