In the play there are also key themes which are Violence, Love, Fate, Death and Friendship. Violence is a theme because of the fight between Tybalt and Mercutio at the beginning of the scene. This relates back to the hatred between the two houses. A quote that supports this is when Tybalt says ‘...therefore Turn and Draw’ He wants to fight and tries to provoke Romeo to fight but Mercutio is the one who is affected. Love is a theme because Romeo tries to stop the hate between Tybalt because he doesn’t want any fights. This is linked in with his love for Juliet since Tybalt is Juliet’s cousin. We know this because when he says ‘Till thou shalt know the reason for my love’ this means he does love Tybalt even though he doesn’t know why. Another theme is when an individual is against the society. Romeo is the individual because he wants peace but Tybalt and Mercutio wants to fight. When he says ‘Gentlemen, for shame forbear this outrage’ it means he wants them stop when they clearly don’t. Fate is a theme because Romeo ended up killing Tybalt and killed him through anger. If Tybalt didn’t kill Mercutio then Romeo wouldn’t have killed Tybalt. Romeo thinks its fate himself because of when he says ‘O, I am fortunes fool.’ Death is a theme because Mercutio and Tybalt die. In the scene, when Benvolio says to Romeo ‘O Romeo, Romeo Brave Mercutio is dead’ and ‘Tybalt, here slain, whom Romeo’s hand did slay’ Shakespeare has chosen these quotes to show death as a theme. Friendship is a theme because Mercutio sticks up for Romeo but when Mercutio dies, Romeo goes and gets revenge by killing Tybalt. Romeo says ‘either thou or I, or both, must go with him’ this means that either way one must die and that’s how much of a friend he is to Mercutio. All the themes together make the scene work. Without one theme the play would be different. If violence was taken out, who would have died?
The main characters in the scene are Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio and Tybalt. From the scene Romeo seems to be the caring one, he doesn’t want any fights. It shows this when he says ‘I do protest, I never hurt thee’ but when the fight goes on and Mercutio dies Romeo changes and wants revenge. This scene shows two sides of Romeo, peaceful and Revenge. Mercutio however is different. He is up for a fight and doesn’t back down. He may be the serious one but he is very clever in the way he speak his words because he sometimes jokes around. When he says, ‘Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man.’ He means he will be in a grave but also he was a serious man. He is also up for a fight when necessary and also makes a joke about it when he talks to Tybalt. ‘Good King of Cats, nothing but one of your nine lives…’ Mercutio obviously thinks he can beat Tybalt. Benvolio is a man who doesn’t like violence but peace, Mercutio accuses him for being a hypocrite and deep down he wants to fight. He tries to get Mercutio to go home when he says ‘I pray thee, good Mercutio, let's retire. The day is hot; the Capulet’s, abroad; and if we meet we shall not 'scape a brawl’ it shows he doesn’t want to bump into trouble. Tybalt on the other hand is very competitive; he is obviously the better fighter and is very cocky. He’s always up for a fight. When he says ‘I am for you’ he wants to fight Mercutio because doesn’t want to look like a fool while Mercutio is cursing him. At the end Tybalt ends up killing Mercutio.
This scene is important because if it didn’t happen the whole play would turn upside down. One event happens after the other, it just keeps on continuing. The main events are when Tybalt kills Mercutio and then Romeo kills Tybalt. If these to events didn’t happen then Romeo wouldn’t have been banished and at the end Romeo would have known that Juliet had a potion that didn’t make her die. All of the events link in together.
Franco made an interpretation of Romeo and Juliet, the scene in this film used swords whereas the version used guns. Even though it used guns it was still effective. The modern version was more effective because it had more action and got more people interested. My group decided to use modern day language and guns because we wanted to show that we could perform it the way the world is today. To show we understood the play well enough we stuck by the lines of the play a lot. We had to take out some bits because we only had a limited amount of time to rehearse. Fortunately we made it successful and delivered the play quite well.
The laws of society back then are different to ours today because back then the boys were trained in sword fighting, they would challenge someone to fight, capital punishment and banishment was around. These days we don’t use swords any more and if boys got trained to use weapons it could be dangerous. Capital Punishment is no longer used and neither is Banishment. The society is organized with the prince at the top and the two houses below. The aspects that seem weird to modern audience is when Juliet is only 13 and she is already getting married to some much older than her. The relevance that the scene has on a modern audience is that young men still cause conflict with each other. Tybalt protects Juliet because she’s his cousin which still happens and young love between Romeo and Juliet when parents still don’t approve. That’s how Shakespeare’s play is still effective in the modern time.
In conclusion Shakespeare has used clever language, included a few themes, made the characters stand out and differ from one and other and created an interesting plot. He gets the audience involved by using dramatic irony and clever words. All the themes link together to make the scene and play to work out. The characters are all different so they stand out. The plot is important because without it there would be a big chunk missing. The scene is needed to make the play link together. Overall the scene is very important in the play.
