Explore the changing moods and feelings of Romeo and Juliet in Act 2 Scene 2 and analyze how Shakespeare uses language to convey character.
Extracts from this document...
Introduction
Explore the changing moods and feelings of Romeo and Juliet in Act 2 Scene 2 and analyze how Shakespeare uses language to convey character. Romeo and Juliet Act 2 Scene 2 is known more famously as the balcony scene. The significance of Act 2 Scene 2 is to convey Romeo and Juliet's love for each other, but the fact they cannot touch symbolises that because of the flares and tensions between the two families they come from (Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet). They will never be able to join each other and get married happily, without having to run away and leave all their families and friends and livelihoods behind. In lines 1-9, Romeo is trying to distinguish himself from all the other Montague young men. His very first line 'He jests at scars that have never felt a wound' is a dismissive comment on Mercutio's joking about love. Just as someone who has never been wounded can joke about a soldier's battle scars, so someone who has never been in love finds it easy to joke about the sufferings of a person deeply in love. ...read more.
Middle
Here she is idealised as the sun, the light in Romeo's life. This is typical of Romeo exaggerating things far beyond reality and some may say sanity. But on the other hand it is probably Shakespeare's way of suppressing Romeo's insatiable lust for Juliet, and nothing but Juliet. Line 24 is when Juliet first makes an apparent noise. It is nothing more than a simple sigh, yet it seems to set Romeo off again on another speech where he is over reacting. Again he starts idealising her, but this time he compares her with an angel: 'As glorious to the night, being o'er my head, As is a winged messenger of heaven'. It also has an idea of courtly love to it. Again in line 25 Juliet simply says: 'Ay me' and in it sets Romeo off yet again raging on about love, and idealising Juliet in lines 26-31. In lines 32-48, we get to see how Juliet has reacted to the events of the night. Unlike Romeo she doesn't overreact and still is able to think straight with her sanity seemingly intact, though she is still deeply in love with Romeo. ...read more.
Conclusion
So she asks who is there hiding out in the night spying on her in lines 52-53. Lines 54-57 show Romeo using a selection of religious language toward Juliet, but using spiteful, hateful language towards his name, just because Juliet has earlier said that it blocks them from having an open relationship with each other so Romeo has decided to join her in hating his name. This seems to continue throughout the whole play, where Romeo is always exaggerating and Juliet is seemingly down to earth. But, even though it may not seem like Juliet is madly in love with Romeo, but it is confirmed that she is at the end of the play, when she wakes up to find Romeo dead and she then kills herself. All in all, I feel Shakespeare has done a great job conveying the mood swings in the scene, which goes from lust to actually being able to speak to and see the person Romeo is lusting for. Also, he has done well by using the language he had done, as it adds more emphasis and also makes it easier to become more emotionally involved in the play, which in turn can lead to a highly successful play, like Romeo and Juliet was, and still is. Arjun Phakey ...read more.
The above preview is unformatted text
This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our AS and A Level Romeo & Juliet section.
Found what you're looking for?
- Start learning 29% faster today
- 150,000+ documents available
- Just £6.99 a month
