In Act 3 Scene 1 the tragic counter movements begin. This scene starts with Benvolio and Mercuitio outside in Verona. Benvolio, at the start of the scene asks Mercuitio if they could go inside because he can see that Mercuitio is hot tempered any way, and the Capulet’s are around, knowing that if anything was to happen, Mercuitio would not back down from a fight. The next significant part of the scene is when a group of Capulet’s arrive with Tybalt. At this point in the scene Tybalt does not want to start any trouble with Mercuitio, but when he asks Mercuitio, ‘ thou consortest with romeo’. Mercuitio replies by twisting the work ‘consort’ which has two meanings, which are to talk, or to play music. Mercuitio decides to mock tybalt, in order to start a fight but Tybalt does not react to this because he only wants to fight Romeo. Eventually Romeo turns up and Tybalt's mood immediately changes from a calm mood to an angry mood, and immediately challenges Romeo to a duel. Romeo declines and Tybalt becomes further raged, but at this point Mercuitio believes that Romeo is just trying to wind tybalt up. But the moment Romeo tells tybalt that that he loves the Capulet name more than his own, Mercuitio feels betrayed and in anger attacks tybalt to defend the Montague name. But because he is friends with Mercuitio and is now related to tybalt romeo does not want anyone to get hurt so he try’s to split them up, and comes between them. Unfortunately Mercuitio get stabbed by tybalt under Romeo's arm. As Mercuitio is dying he blames Romeo and repeats ‘a plague a’ both your houses.’ Three times. As mentioned earlier Shakespeare's audience would take this seriously.
Romeo, for the first time in the play, becomes enraged. Which is totally out of character for Romeo who is usually calm, quiet and sociable, he shows in this scene that he has little self-control. Romeo attacks tybalt in a blind rage and kills him after which Romeo realises what he has done and is surprised, shown by the words ‘ O I am fortunes fool.’ This also shows that he did not want to kill tybalt and proves that he has little self-control. He also realises that he has just killed his new cousin.
Romeo blames two things for Mercuitio’s death, these are his fate ‘Fortunes fool’ and the other thing he blames is Juliet, he says ‘O sweet Juliet, thy beauty hath made me effeminate’ which suggests that Juliet’s has made him act like a woman and that if he had accepted Tybalt's challenge firsthand then Mercuitio would still be alive.
This is a turning point in the play because for the first time in the play the two families have a concrete reason for their hatred of each other, which are the two deaths.
The central scene of the play is act 3 scene 1, because this scene changes the whole course of the play from a romantic comedy to a tragedy. This scene also marks the exit of two dominant characters in the play (Mercuitio and Tybalt). When Mercuitio refuses to stomach Romeo’s apparent cowardice ‘ O calm dishonourable vile submission’. The action takes an abrupt spiral into a tragedy. It is from here that time takes on a desperate sense of urgency, Juliet is sped towards a second marriage, the message to Romeo telling him of the plan gets delayed and Romeo is told that Juliet is dead. When Romeo gets to her grave he takes the poison that was with Juliet and kills himself. But soon after Juliet wakes up to find Romeo’s dead body she kills herself.
When Romeo killed tybalt not only did he realise what he had done but what the consequences were. He realised that if he stayed he would be killed by the price, if he ran away he would never see Juliet again because there was no way that Juliet’s parents would let her leave the house after the death of tybalt, so romeo is in a deadlock. This means that there no is way that Romeo and Juliet’s love can last.
From the first time that tybalt sees romeo face to face, we can tell that he does not like him ‘thou art a villain.’ Romeo try’s to diffuse Tybalt’s rage by implying that tybalt does not know what romeo is really like when tybalt refuses this romeo again try’s to suggest that tybalt should wait to find out the true reason for his love, this reminds you of the advice given to romeo and Juliet before there marriage by friar Lawrence, that ‘ haste always brings tragedy.’
There are a lot of events in the play that if they took play or didn’t take play could change the story completely. For example if romeo didn’t go to the Capulet party he would not have met Juliet, if the servant had not asked romeo for help with the invitations then romeo wouldn’t of even known about the Capulet party. And if Mercuitio did not feel so let down by Romeo the deaths may not of taken place. There are many other scenarios that could have changed the course of the play.
