Foreshadowing As a Very Important Part Of Romeo and Juliet Love Story

In William Shakespeare's love tragedy Romeo and Juliet, the writing method, foreshadowing is applied, to create a suspenseful mood for the audience and helps hint to what’s yet to come.. Foreshadowing is used to to prevent readers from being sad or angry from the tragic outcomes. Also, foreshadowing creates suspense for the audience, which will make them want to keep reading. In the tragedy, Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare, demonstrates foreshadowing through the incredible love the main characters poses for each other.

Foreshadowing plays a huge role fostering this play. Foreshadowing helps a reader, who is unaware of the upcoming events, get an idea of what events will be taking place in a short time. This initiates the readers speculations and and helps the reader to create predictions. In addition, the reader does not know when the events are going to take place or how they will unfold. This leads the reader in one direction, when the truth is completely different.

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Usually this will make the reader either happy or sad, by the end of the play. For example, Fair Lawrence says “These violent delights have violent ends, And in their triumph die, like fire and powder.” he refers to Romeo and Juliets delightful love and how it builds up throughout the story to have a violent end when they are dead.

Also, foreshadowing can contribute to hints about Romeo and Juliet's love for each other and how the result of the relationship will be throughout the play. When Juliet was on the balcony speaking to Romeo she said, “It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden, too like the lightning, which doth cease to be Ere one can say ‘It lightens.

’ Sweet, good night”. This quote is very important because she refers as the two of them as the lightning that strikes fast and bright and then it is soon gone. When we reach the end of the play we see that their relationship is growing bright when the plan is in progress and then turns tragic when the plan fails. The lightning is all gone when the lovers both kill themselves in a terrible mess up in the plan’s instructions.

Lastly, foreshadowing can establish the sensation of suspense. While reading the prologue of the play, the reader will understand, through foreshadowing, that through the sights of their childrens dead corpse, the feud between the two lovers families will come to an end. For example, the prologue says, “Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;” This is a very intriguing way to begin the play because a reader will want to begin reading, because they will want to know about the families feud and how the lovers die. The suspense will cause the reader to want to keep reading.

In conclusion, foreshadowing is a crucial part of Shakespeare's piece for many reasons. Foreshadowing is used for suspense so the reader will continue to read. It gives the reader clues right from the start that the ending will be a bad ending. Also, foreshadowing helps structure the plot and helps give the story better meaning. Lastly, foreshadowing gives the readers an idea about how Romeo and Juliet's relationship will end and in dramatic fashion. Foreshadowing is a very important part of Romeo and Juliet, and it helps define William Shakespeare’s extraordinary piece of work.   

Works cited

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10. Zender, K. (2015). "Like Fire and Powder": The Dramatic Foreshadowing of Romeo and Juliet. Journal of the Wooden O Symposium, 15, 1-15.