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William Shakespeare in his work “Romeo and Juliet” tells about a beautiful, pure and sincere love, which unfortunately ends tragically. This is a narrative, recounting about tender feelings of young people have faced a cruel and inhuman world. Enmity, strife and blood feuds are trying to resist their nascent sympathy. But the heroes do not imagine life without each other and are ready to die, just to be together. It is not surprising that this story is transmitted through generations, becoming almost a legend.
The tragedy’s characters are very young, but their sentiments become so deep that over a short period of time they quickly grow up. Prior to the meeting with Romeo, Juliette Capulet was an obedient and loving daughter, for whom her parents served as an embodiment of wisdom, goodness, and justice. While a girl did not fall in love, she considered all Montecchi enemies and did not think about the true causes of hatred between their families.
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But with an advent of passion, Juliet comes to life with mind, starting to wonder how she should remain her conscience clean and at the same time love a family enemy. She does not yet know about hiding own emotions. A girl is not capable of hating a person just for his origin. Unlike Juliet, Romeo seems to us as a young man spending time in idleness but fascinated by an absurd and unapproachable beauty Rosalind. Not having achieved reciprocity, he is sad and seeking solitude, yet not realizing that this is a fictitious passion.
But a meeting with Juliet transforms the hero. At the moment he reincarnates into an ardent, boundlessly in love man, ready for anything for the sake of love. Their sensations are violated by all the prohibitions and restrictions imposed by clans. Fondness makes the youth wise. A hostile attitude towards the Capulet, blind hatred, which cannot be explained by reason, was replaced by courageous restraint. The feelings of Romeo and Juliet are severely tested. They prefer sympathy to home loyalty, merging in a single impulse, but individuality is preserved in each of them. A heroine is still quite a child. The protagonists are fighting for the right to choose who to love, but they met with fierce enmity. Such a strong feeling is born from an admiration of beauty, from the belief in the greatness of humanity and the desire to share a joy of life. Juliet perishes, hardly having felt happiness. No one can replace her poisoned Romeo. Fondness does not repeat itself, and without it, existence loses meaning for the girl. Taking away their life, the personages endured a severe sentence of inhumanity. In their rebellion and striving to find own freedom, qualities of noble souls that will always excite people are expressed. Relations between them lasted less than a week, but it was opposed to the outdated views of their families. It was the death of the children that finally managed to reconcile the Capulet and the Montague. In the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, there is such a morality: human feelings are much more significant than old class superstitions. Thus, the Shakespeare's composition “Romeo and Juliet” is considered the saddest and bright love story in world literature. Two lovers, ready for the sake of their passion for incredible deeds, and a fatal combination of circumstances, which causes readers tears and an understanding of how prejudice may ruin a person's life. In addition, a good light syllable of the play, relevant humor, and excellent secondary personages makes this work so beloved in the centuries after writing.
In his play, Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare uses various examples of figurative language. He does this through the use of allusions, metaphors and foreshadowing in order to develop character and plot.
Shakespeare uses one specific type of figurative to give you plot, and that type is foreshadowing. Through out the play Shakespeare continuously gives hints that give you more meaning to the purpose of the verse. In some cases, Shakespeare reveals plot, in this case upcoming death or misery like when the chorus says, "A pair of star crossed lovers take their life….whose misadventured piteous overthrows." In that passage, the chorus talks of Romeo and Juliet's unfortunate love, which foreshadows their certain end. In the verse right before Juliet takes the potion Friar Laurence gave to her, she is doubtful that she will ever see her family, again foreshadowing her upcoming death," God knows when we shall meet again.. I have a faint cold fear thrills through. Sometimes the speaker has no knowledge of the foreshadowing she or he is doing such as the time when Friar Laurence was predicting unfortunate events were about to happen before he entered the Capulet Tomb.
Shakespeare uses metaphors, many allusions, and some conceits in order to develop characterization. When Romeo stated "It is the east and Juliet is the sun, Arise fair sun and kill the envious moon" Shakespeare is using a metaphor to compare Juliet to the sun. This passage implies that Juliet is as great and as bright as the sun (good) which eliminates darkness (evil) as it arises, He also uses an allusion to metaphorically compare Juliet to Helios, the sun god, and is asking Juliet to arise and eliminate the evil of darkness, Artemis, the Greek moon goddess. Shakespeare also compares Paris to a book when lady Capulet says "Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face" which is a conceit to show the reading that Paris is like a perfect book and "only lacks a cover".
The "cover" of a book is also another conceit which supposedly represents Juliet and her part in marriage to Paris. Shakespeare tries to imply that Paris is almost perfect and needs only Juliet to marry him to become complete. Another example where Shakespeare uses a conceit is when Friar Lawrence is outside of his cell gathering herbs. He indirectly compares everyday people to "plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities" and saying how alike plants and people are because "Virtue itself turns vice being misapplied, and vice sometimes by action dignified". This conceit shows how some people can turn good or evil, and characterizes friar Laurence because he tries to convert evil, the two feuding families, to good by using the good of Romeo and Juliet's love.
Shakespeare brings into play the use of imagery. Romeo relates Juliet to an image of a saint that should be worshiped, a role that Juliet is willing to play. One of the play's most constant visual image is the contrast between light and dark, frequently in conditions of night and day imagery. This contrast doesn't have a meaning, light isn't always good, and dark isn't always evil. On the contrary, light and dark are generally used to supply a comparison and to indicate at different options. One of the most important cases of this motif is Romeo's lengthy contemplation on the sun and the moon during the balcony scene, in which Juliet is metaphorically described as the sun, is seen as "kill[ing] the envious moon" and converting the night into day. A similar vague impression of night and day occurs in the morning after Romeo and Juliet's night together.
Romeo is enforced to depart for exile in the morning, but Juliet, doesn't want him to leave her room. So the lovers pretended that it is still night, and that the light is actually darkness: "More light and light, more dark and dark our woes."Shakespeare develops character and plot by using a variety of allusions, metaphors, conceits, and foreshadowing events. His diction and use of figurative language greatly contributes to his play and helps the reader to have a better understanding of the characters and plot. Shakespeare's use of foreshadowing greatly develops the plot and his conceits and allusions develop characterization. By using figurative language through his diction, Shakespeare is able to explain his many purposes.
"Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare
Romeo and Juliet, by Shakespeare, is a play which shows how prejudice leads to escalating violence. Prejudice leads to violence shown in the play when the feuding families, the Montagues and Capulets fight. In each case, disruption, fighting, injuries and death occur. Also, the prejudice against the two families never got resolved because they were enemies. The prejudice started in Act one Scene one, when the Capulets and Montague servants confronted each other. Then the Capulets servants insult the Montagues. Which lead to a street brawl of the two feuding families. Furthermore in Act three Scene one, the prejudice between the families get worse. When Tybalt wanted revenge with the Montagues, he then confronted Romeo and Mercutio and started a duel. In addition the prejudice between families got even worse, when Tybalt kills Mercutio. Also, in Act five Scene three, Tybalt challenges Romeo to fight and Romeo kills him. Which lead to prejudice between the families.
The street in Verona, a public place, is where the prejudice starts between the two families. In Act one Scene one, Sampson and Gregory servants for the Capulets, insulted the Montagues servants Balthasar and Abraham by biting his thumb at him. This leads to a fight, which involves the Lord's of both families and the Prince. No death occurred, but the families attitudes against each other were worse then before. Which caused a lot of prejudice against the families that lead to violence.
In like manners, another duel between the two feuding families start up again in the street of Verona in Act three Scene one. When Mercutio and Benvolio friends of Romeo, are confronted by Tybalt, who is still prejudice against the Montagues. Tybalt thinks that they crashed the Capulets ball and know he wants revenge. Mercutio and Tybalt fight between each others. Now Romeo arrives trying to stop the arguments. Tybalt draws his sword and challenges Romeo. Romeo refuses to fight and Mercutio stops in to meet Tybalt challenges. Romeo again, steps in to stop the fighting, but Tybalt stabs Mercutio under Romeo's arm. Mercutio from this action dies from his injury and this caused disruption between the families which lead to prejudice.
Instead of a Capulet killing a Montague, in Act five Scene three, a Montague kills a Capulet as prejudice leads to violence. In the Capulets Tomb at night, Paris, a young nobleman, kinsman to the Prince has come to pay his respect to his 'lost' Juliet. When he hears the footstep of his enemies Romeo and Balthasar. Paris thinks Romeo has come to desecrate Juliet's grave in act of the prejudice against them. While young Romeo was only trying to see his only love dead.. But Paris didn't know so he challenges Romeo to a fight and Romeo kills Paris. This event was caused due to prejudice that lead to violence which included injuries, death and disruption.
From examining Romeo and Juliet, it is evident that the play shows how prejudice leads to escalating violence when the opening brawl started by the servants, the duel between Mercutio and Tybalt and Romeo and Paris. So it is evident that Romeo and Juliet, is a play that shows how prejudice leads to escalating violence between the feuding families.
Violence is a very powerful and stressful behavior shown throughout this play by many of the characters. Violence also plays a very important role in The tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Without violence, Romeo would not have slain Tybalt and been banished from Verona thus causing all of problems between him and Juliet. Violence can also be very stressful to a person. It can cause them to have many problems with life, love and other personal things.
Violence can have lasting effects on someone that can lead them into committing dumb and meaningless acts such as killing themselves or other people. Although there are many scenes where violence occurs the main one would probably have to be the scene where Romeo slew Tybalt. This scene had a major impact on the lives of Romeo and Juliet. This act of violence got Romeo banished from Verona and his wedding with Juliet canceled. This can be played out through using your words to hurt somebody’s feelings.
Insulting someone is a good example of this type of violence. In Romeo and Juliet, people get insulated numerous amounts of times from rude gestures and words. The main form of violence in Romeo and Juliet is physical violence. But there are also many scenes where psychological abuse occurs. For example, in Act 1, scene,1, lines 41 through 49, Sampson and Gregory are insulting Abram. “I will frown as I pass by, and let them take it as they list. [He bites his thumb. ] Do you bite your thumb at us, sir? I do bite my thumb, sir.
Do you bite your thumb at us, sir? Is the law of our side if I say “Ay”? ” This simple yet rude gesture caused an argument, and then a fight. Prejudice could have also lead to all the many acts of violence shown in the play when the feuding families, the Montague’s and Capulet’s fight. In each case, disruption, fighting, injuries and death occur. Also, the prejudice against the two families never got resolved because they were enemies. The prejudice started in Act one Scene one, when the Capulet’s and Montague servants confronted each other.
The Capulet servants insulted the Montague servants which lead to a street brawl between the two families. Furthermore in Act three Scene one, the prejudice between the families got worse because Tybalt wanted revenge against the Montague so he started a fight with Tybalt and killed him. After the fight with Mercutio, Romeo and Tybalt fought and Tybalt lost. A few good examples of violence through out this play It is very evident that Romeo and Juliet has a theme of violence that is shown all throughout the beginning, middle and end of the play.
“Romeo and Juliet” Essay Introduction. (2018, May 18). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/romeo-and-juliet-essay-introduction-essay
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