The friar shows that he loves Romeo because he marries him and Juliet knowing how much trouble he will get into by doing so, but he also believes it will help bring the two families together. He helps Juliet, as he knows that it would be in Romeo’s best interest. The friar gives Juliet a poison to make her look like she is dead so that she does not have to marry Paris and can still have Romeo.
Romeo, Benvolio and Mercutio are all friends. They have fraternal love for each other. Mercutio is a fiery, concerned friend. His close relationship with Romeo leads to a fight with Tybalt where he comes to the defence of Romeo and ends up dying for his friends. Mercutio puts his life at risk for Romeo “my very friend, hath got this mortal hurt in my behalf, my reputation stained with Tybalt’s slander.”
Benvolio is Romeo’s friend in a different way. He counsels Romeo and helps him with his love for Rosaline. Benvolio suggests that Romeo going to the masked ball, will help him get over Rosaline. “We must have you dance,” they say because they want Romeo to find someone else other than Rosaline.
The Montagues have a different type of love with their children than the Capulets. They actually have familial love together where as the Capulets only love with possessions. Montague is very fond of Romeo and shows this by being concerned about him. Romeo is lonely as he loves Rosaline but she does not return this love. His father notices that he is down and talks to Benvolio about it. Montague suggests that Benvolio finds out what is making Romeo depressed. “Unless good counsel may the cause remove.” Benvolio then asks if Montague knows of any reason why Romeo is like this. Montague says that Romeo is so secretive that it is impossible to find out what is wrong, but he would dearly like to know. Romeo then appears. Benvolio suggests that Romeo’s parents leave and promises to find out what is wrong. They agree to depart. This shows that Montague is concerned about his son.
Lady Montague dies of a broken heart after Romeo’s death. “My wife is dead tonight. Grief of her son’s exile hath stopped her breath.” This shows how much she loves her son and that love is not just happy, it also shows the price you can pay for loving someone so much as do Romeo and Juliet’s deaths. Love is one of life’s greatest pleasures, all-to-often it requires the greatest price as it does in this tragic story. Lady Montague’s death also shows that her love for Romeo her son was greater and deeper than her love for her husband because she still had him after Romeo died but her love for Montague was not enough and she was lost without her son.
Juliet moves from familial love for her family, although this is not reciprocated, to true love and has to be prepared to accept the responsibility and the price for her actions. The price is her family not loving her because she is in love with a Montague. Also because she is in love with Romeo she will not and cannot marry Paris. Her father becomes angry with her. Juliet says that she will forget her family just to love Romeo. “O Romeo, Romeo wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father, refuse thy name or if thou wilt not, but be sworn my love, and I’ll no longer be a Capulet.” She is willing to lose her family just to be with Romeo and love him. She says that she does not need familial love if she has true love with Romeo.
Romeo has romantic love as he is in love with Rosaline; he is in love with the idea of being in love, as he will not really love Rosaline because she will not return the love. “Out of her favour where I am in love.” Romeo fantasises about being in love with Rosaline and the sexual lust between them that will not happen. It is a dreamy romanticism.
Paris is very formal and correct with the arrangements of marriage between him and Juliet. He pretends to love her, as he believes it is his duty. They were due to be married, and he has a stylised response to her death. “The obsequies that I for thee will keep, nightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.”
Romeo and Juliet experience true love and sexual love. Shakespeare does not avoid the sexuality issue as Romeo and Juliet spend their wedding night together. They have a love that is sanctified in the eyes of god and church. Their love is in a class of it’s own way beyond pursuit of physical fulfilment and sexual lust that Romeo had for Rosaline. Once Romeo has meet Juliet his idyllic view of love changes. When Romeo speaks of his love for Rosaline, he uses oxymorons, “feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,” but when he finds true love with Juliet, he talks of love in a desperate way “O that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek.”
Although sex before marriage was tolerated in some circumstances, marriage was the only honourable way the two could accomplish their love. Perhaps it is no accident that Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare's most romantic and tragic plays. The play does not show the common pattern of tragedy, a person of high status falling to death. Instead it shows the deaths of two main characters, young and hasty, caught in a web, partly of their own making.
B) Explain how the courtship and marriage rituals of Shakespeare’s day are different from our own.
In Shakespeare’s day the parents where able to marry their daughters off, to whom they wish. In western cultures parents, these days, will not do that. Their daughters would not allow them to do so. Children, especially girls, married young. In some noble houses marriages were indeed contracted at a young age, for reasons of property and family association. The age of marriage for men was probably the same or a bit older than that of women. The age of permission was 12 for a girl, 14 for a boy, but for most children puberty came two or three years later than it does today. The courtship rituals of Shakespeare’s time were short. The parents would arrange the marriage and the bride and groom might meet for the first time just before the wedding or a few weeks before hand. Today people take longer to marry. They meet, get engaged and marry over a span of many years. Some people do not marry at all, but live together as man and wife. In the 16th Century couples would have a chaperone when they met, a person to make sure that there was no intimacy between the couple. Today that is not necessary. Attitudes are more liberal today than in Shakespeare’s time.
C) Choose one moment of love in the play and describe how this extract might be delivered in performance paying attention to costume, lighting, speech, etc.
The moment of love I have chosen to direct is Act 5 Scene 3 from line 148 where Juliet speaks first after waking up, to where she stabs herself.
The props are a four-poster bed, a dagger, a coffin, red carpet and two potions.
The curtained recess (inner space) at the back would be used, for the Capulets' tomb in Romeo and Juliet and this part of the stage would be raised with 3 steps down all along the front of the recess. Along the middle of these steps there would be a red carpet leading out to half way across the main stage. This carpet will go underneath a four-poster bed set a bit back from the edge of the recess. Behind this bed will be an open black coffin. Juliet will be lying on this bed when this part of the scene begins.
Juliet in this scene wears bodice (with cord up at the back) with an ankle length volumous skirt. The bodice is gathered at the waist and has puffy shoulders, which come out into long, thin sleeves. The dress would be red and have lace around the edge, waist and at the top of the bodice. Juliet would have her hair loose and bare feet. Romeo would wear red below knee length pantaloons, a deep red waistcoat and a white open neck frilly shirt. He would wear crimson tights and black buckle shoes. The friar would wear a black priest’s tunic.
The lighting would be dark around the edge of the stage and light on the main focus, the bed. A spot light would follow the friar off the stage the focus back on Juliet and Romeo.
The moment of love I have chosen to direct is Act 5 Scene 3 from line 148 where Juliet speaks first after waking up, to where she stabs herself. Juliet sits up and speaks to the friar, then as the friar talks he moves towards her then away and exits stage right. Then Juliet notices the potion in Romeo’s hand and reaches for his dagger, kisses him then stabs herself. She falls to the bed and the dagger drops out of her hand and down the steps. This sound of the dagger hitting each step is emphasised by a percussion instrument. A flute starts playing and then the curtains draw ready for the next scene. Romeo is lying on the first step though out this section of the scene. The music of the flute is used to create the right mood. On the curtains would be drawn a set of cast iron gates to show the gates into the tomb.
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