Shakespeare's Language and Imagery: Building Tension and Death of Tybalt

Imagery plays a key part in Shakespeare's plays because the audience had to create a mental image of what is happening through the emotionally charged language and provides an insight into a character's mind, "hot days, is the "mad blood stirring" ", in which nature describes how it is hot and the tension is rising, with short tempers in the opening lines of act three scene one. These appear, usually, as similes or metaphors, "hot a Jack".

Shakespeare uses blank verse, which is plain text but it has rhythm, yet no rhyming words or couplets.

He also tends to write in "Ianbicpentameter", with five stressed and unstressed syllables, "a plague on both your houses, I am sped". There is a possibility that actors may read out the distinct syllable definition and so they have to speak ordinarily and, in this scene, dramatically to increase tension. Nicknames are given to some characters that reflect their personality, for example Tybalt is called a "rat-catcher", by Mercutio, due to the fact that his nickname is "King of Cats", also describing his agility in combat which tells the audience that a confrontation will happen soon, arising from the taunts that Mercutio persistently uses, "Make haste, lest mine be about your ears", building up tension from Mercutio's speech.

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There is a great rise in dramatic tension as Romeo and Tybalt meet because yet again there are a clash of opposites, which have been apparent throughout the play (i.e.: Capulets versus(vs.) Montagues/Life vs. Death). Different methods of language is included in act three scene one to maintain tension in the build up to fight between Romeo and Tybalt, such as alliteration, "fire-eyed fury" and many pun's, "you shall find me a grave man.

", meaning that Mercutio is serious and he will be buried in a grave or "worms' meat of me". The word "plague" upsets Romeo, forcing tension upwards as he builds up hate for Tybalt.

As Mercutio dies, he ends his lines in a rhyming couplet, "doth depend, must end", which indicates the end of a sequence, his death. This mark of a Shakespeare play would be instantly recognised by Elizabethan audiences, as well as the puns and biblical references because Christianity was the only religion practiced during the sixteenth century, "nor as wide as a church door", for which a coffin will fit through.

Shakespeare includes unique methods of forming suspense, one of which is "enjambement". This occurs when he deliberately does not use "end-stopped lines", or full stops at the end of a line, but instead, places punctuation whenever it is needed. It builds up the tension as the audience hear a fast-flowing speech, moving onto line after line without a sudden pause to end a sentence, losing tension, "With Tybalt's slander. Tybalt that an hour hath been my cousin." showing Romeo's anger at Tybalt for killing Mercutio. This will increase tension because the audience know that a death will occur soon, "Either thou or I, or both, must go with him", confirming that either Romeo or Tybalt "must" die, putting upward pressure onto the audience.

Tybalt refers Romeo as a "boy", rather than a man, which insults him greatly. Tybalt himself only has thirty-six lines in the play, yet fourteen of those lines appear in act three scene one, some spoken with an aggressive and violent intention in his words, "Boy, shall not excuse the injuries", "wretched boy, shalt with him hence", heightening the dramatic tension to its peak as a long awaited duel is about to unfold.

Other imagery such as oxymorons, combining two opposites emphasising the tension that is in act three scene one, "how nice the quarrel was", giving a startling, unusual effect the way of listing things is Shakespeare quality, when Benvolio regurgitates the recent events, also known by the Elizabethan audience.

Tybalt's death is quick but the tension remains as the Prince arrives. The poetic style of writing (rhyming couplets) in the Prince's speech is more direct and emphasises the seriousness of the matter. Dramatic tension is still high as Romeo has been "exiled" from Verona.