In the next bit of the scene the tension and drama is increased even more. In this part of the scene, Romeo runs in and sees wishes to calm down the situation, Tybalt opens with a killer line saying, “peace be with you, sir, here come my man.” This means that he had no more to say to Mercutio as Romeo had entered and he was whom Tybalt had come to see. He then calls Romeo a villain which provokes the situation and just shows that Tybalt is only interested in having a fight with Romeo, but Romeo only wants peace, the fact that the audience knows that Romeo is married to Juliet and that he is actually related to the person trying to have a fight with him, so Romeo just falls to his knees as if begging to Tybalt wanting peace and saying that he loves the name Capulet just as much as Montague. This outrages Mercutio and he challenges Tybalt to a fight with a witty comment saying that he only wants one of Tybalt’s nine lives, and then draws his sword, Tybalt takes up his challenge, but Romeo doesn’t want this to happen which is shown by his speech, but then shortly after by accident mercutio gets stabbed by Tybalt under Romeo’s arm, this is very tragic in its own sense as Mercutio is neither Montague or Capulet and he was the source of humour.
There are many reasons why mercutio’s death is dramatic and tragic, one reason is how he died, he was dieing slowly, which is always a horrible experience to go through. He tries to joke about him dieing, for example, “ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch,” here he is pretending that it isn’t actually that bad but the horrible bit is that he as well as the audience knows that he is dieing. This affects the audience as they feel part of his misery when he is dieing, as he was such a loved character. Another reason that it is dramatic is because he was the only source of humour; this is what connected him with the audience because everyone likes someone who is funny. Another reason is that without him the play up to this point would be very heavy and dull and this makes them think will the rest of them play be hard going without him. As soon as he dies the whole play takes a turn for the worst and becomes dull and the absence of mercutio can be felt by the audience, but the most dramatic part of his death is that he belonged to neither family that were involved in the fight.
The next part of the scene is packed full of different emotions, and that is why this part of the scene is dramatic, when mercutio is dieing Romeo is blaming himself which means he is flooded with guilt and horror. Then benvolio runs in and tells Romeo that Mercutio is dead and goes on about mercutio been too young to die. Then a dramatic point is when Romeo declares this as a tuning point in his life and this is where the sorrow will start. Then he turns from sorrow and guilt to rage and fury, which is all aimed at Tybalt. Then he starts to threaten Tybalt and he challenges him to a fight to the death and refers to mercutio’s death by saying, “either thou or I shall go with him”, meaning that either Romeo or Tybalt will be going to heaven with mercutio. Then Romeo kills Tybalt in a dramatic fashion but the audience doesn’t feel any sorrow towards Tybalt’s death, as nobody really likes him.
Then in the next part of the scene the prince hears about the fight and when he does enter the atmosphere of anger and rushing all changes to calmness as he enters, this is because he was the most important person in Verona as he was part of the royal family, so he was the person to make prosecutions so everyone was calm and respectful. By now both of the families have turned up at the site of the fight. Lady Capulet starts pleading to the prince that Romeo should die, this is because Romeo killed Tybalt, she is saying this with a lot of raw emotion, you know this because she is crying and is very angry. Then benvolio delivers a speech with lots of emotion and to an extent a little bit of anxiety, this hits all of the citizens as they find out how tragic and unfortunate this event has been, it stops everyone in their tracks and now everyone can have their own viewpoint on the prosecution of Romeo. Then the Montague then challenges lady Capulet’s speech by saying that Tybalt deserved to die for killing mercutio, the court would do that anyway. Then the prince stops all of this, which is another dramatic point because from very emotional speeches to this very factual and cold speech from the prince, and bearing in mind that a member of his family has been killed he gave a fairly nice sentence to Romeo, who now is the lowest he has ever been in his life.
The dramatic difference of this scene can be seen by Romeo, who ran in as happy as can be as he has just married Juliet, then to loose a friend to murdering Tybalt, he has walked away feeling very low.
Dan Booth
