In the first section of the play ‘the prologue’ it makes audience ready to watch story full of violence because it tell audience what to expect from watching the play- “Civil bloods make civil hands unclean”. For the audience this sounds so evil that the violence being so unfair on death of so many cast. The feud between the Capulet and Montague reigns supreme which rules over love in almost unfair manner.
The prologue is written as a sonnet which is fourteen lines with a set from and pattern of rhyme and which exists the whole summary of the play. In the very beginning it shows that the play is going to be full of violence. It has a very exact rhyme. From this entire main theme is that there is a relation between the three things, Passion, death and violence. In the play Romeo and Juliet are always connected to the passion whether the passion is love or hate. The prologue suggests that the theme of violence is important in the play because story is love story, in this love and violence got connection between each other. Love is used to keep lover closer where as violence is used to keep them far.
The prejudice is started in Act 1 Scene 1 when the servants of Capulet, Sampson and Gregory, insulted the servants of the Montague, Bathasar and Abraham. This leads to a fight between Montague and Capulet which involves the Lord’s of both of families and the prince. No death occurred but the relations between them get even worse than before which caused a lot of prejudice against the families that leads to violence. This fight starts from a mere mentioning of a few words which sets off a large reaction between the characters ending in a large collision. As said by Sampson “a dog of the house of Montague moves hell” this tells to audience that how much hate is between those two feuding families. The Shakespeare has used Prince to declare that the violence between the two families has gone too long. The Shakespeare has used too much violence here because it make further longer and to make it interesting. If there is no violence than true love cannot be great or famous.
Another duel between the two families started in the Act3 Scene1 when Mercuito and Benvolio friends of Romeo, are confronted by Tybalt. The prejudice between families gets even worse, when Tybalt kills the Mercuito. This scene got lot of violence. Shakespeare used lot of violence in this scene to show how fragile the lovers romance, and how outside force will act to destroy it. The violence in this scene makes the play effective because here Romeo kills Tybalt in hot moment which was his misfortune. In this scene the violence is too much because of Tybalt and Mercuito.
Tybalt is a Capulet, Juliet’s cousin on her mother’s side. Vain, fashionable supremely aware courtesy and lack of it, he becomes aggressive, violent and quick to draw hi sword when he feels his pride has been injured. Once drawn, his sword is something to be feared. He loathes Montague. In this scene he is the one who start the violence that is to do fight with Mercuito, and finally he kills him.
Mercutio is a kinsman to the Prince, the Romeo’s close friend. He can be quite hot headed, and hates people who are affected, pretentious or obsessed with the latest fashions. He finds Romeo’s romanticized ideas about love tiresome and tries to convince Romeo to view love as a simple matter of sexual appetite. He is different characters from all other because he blames their deaths on fate. Mercuito dies cursing all Montague and Capulet. Mercuito believes that specific people are responsible for his death rather some external impersonal force. In this scene he has been killed by Tybalt and in hot moment Romeo killed Tybalt which give the story to different mood.
In Act 3 Scene5 Romeo and Juliet are about to bid each other farewell after their first and only night together before goes into banishment at Mantua. When Romeo drops from her balcony to the ground Lady Capulet arrives with the news that Juliet is to be married to Paris within two days. “It is the lark that sings so out of tune, Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps”. Here the position of lovers reverse, as at first it is Romeo who wishes to go and Juliet who wants him to stay and very soon she urges him to go with a sudden, energetic image. This scene doesn’t have any violence but it tells us that it is the violence which keeps the lover far from each other. It also got a dramatic irony for when Juliet next sees her husband he is indeed pale in the tomb “Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low, as one dead in the bottom of the tomb.
Therefore, the theme of this play is about young love and how the hate affects the lovers. The Romeo and Juliet are a young lovers who could even die for each other and their parents who are the greatest enemy and hate each other very much because of whom their was the death of the lover. From this plays we also know that at the time of Shakespeare the people like to watch the play that contain violence and blood so every play set at that time got lot of violence although it is a love story or not.
