In her manner, she acts as a woman out of her time, with her modern day attitude stuck in the conformity of Shakespeare's era. Her lack of prospects and a father figure therefore frees her to be more open and more masculine. However, as Kim Price shows, Beatrice can be seen as a celebration of an Elizabethan woman, who has obviously still been highly educated, unlike many noble women later in history.
Beatrice's cousin, Hero, does feel the pressure to conform and make her father proud. It is evident that in the presence of her father, Hero rarely speaks, and does not contest comments made (Throughout Act 2). However, when her father, Leonato, the Governor of Messina, leaves her, she becomes an entirely different person. Her personality changes to fit her real being, an intelligent young woman, who uses her intelligence with wit and comedy. We see evidence of this in Act 2 Scene 1, when Hero jokes with the Prince at a masked ball, saying to him that she hopes his face looks better than his mask, by saying For god defend the Lute should be like the case!' We also see evidence of her confident behaviour throughout Act 3 Scene 1, where she acts as the key character in setting up Beatrice and Benedick. She does this by talking to her friends and maids loudly about Benedick, adding twists to the dialogue to satisfy her humour and further convince Beatrice of Benedick's apparent love for her. An example of this is her saying She cannot love, nor take no shape nor project of affection, she is so self-endeared. Hero clearly heckles Beatrice like this, knowing she is listening to their conversation. Hero believes this will make the strong willed Beatrice want to prove Hero wrong, and perhaps unwillingly fall in love with Benedick. Interestingly, when Beatrice and Benedick do admit their love for each other, Beatrice starts to act in line with other young women, briefly losing this restraint when she demands Benedick kills Claudio.
