Discuss how far you feel that Shakespeare presents the play
Discuss how far you feel that Shakespeare presents the play "Romeo And Juliet" as a dramatic tragedy based on the themes of love and hate William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon on or around April 23, 1564 and was baptised at the Holy Trinity, April 26, 1564. Shakespeare's parents were John and Mary Arden Shakespeare. On November 27, 1582, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway who was eight years older than him. Their first daughter Susanna, was born around May 26, 1583 and Hamnet and Judith, twins, were born around February 2, 1585. Around 1592, it is believed that Shakespeare's Henry VI was performed at the Rose Theatre in London. By 1594 Shakespeare had rapidly risen as one of the top playwrights of the time. In August of 1596 his son Hamnet died. In 1599, the Globe Theatre was built. Shakespeare was one of the investors for this new theatre. On April 23, 1616, Shakespeare died. Shakespeare lived in the Elizabethan Era, in those days, parents expected to be obeyed and they even decided who their children should marry. Shakespeare grew up, acted in and wrote for a very different theatre from what we have today. Elizabethan actors had very different ideas on how to create the illusion of reality and there was no front curtain separating the audience from the stage. The plays were performed in daylight and female parts were written for young actors and boys. Costumes were very important and would separate the rich, who would wear silk, linen or woollen clothing, and the poor who would wear simple clothes of leather or wool. Very little scenery was used other than an occasional backcloth. A potted tree would symbolise a forest, a few plates an inn. The time, place and mood were created by the actors. Plays were also produced in town halls, private houses and inn-yards. The first designs for the purpose built theatre used the same ideas as those of the open inn-yards. This may have been because there was a perpetual risk of the plague. It spread more easily in closed crowded conditions. As a young boy and growing up William would help his father with his work. Glovers had a priveleged position in those days. On market day they would stand beneath the clock at Market Cross which was the most important place in town. While he was there, William had plenty of opportunity to see plays and meet players from many bands of professional players who travelled around the country, perhaps escaping from London when there was an outbreak of the plague. All this must've been a wonderful experience for a boy whose imagination was influenced by what he saw and heard. The strange tales told by sailors coming back from foreign lands, the village celebrations, arguments about the struggle for freedom of speech. William would even be able to watch play after play, a delight for any child, especially one with his imagination. Amateur actors from surrounding villages, in search of an audience, would come to town on market day. The theme of the amateur actor and his good natured yet clumsy performances was used in Shakespeares plays. The play Romeo and Juliet is set in Verona, Northern Italy. Shakespeare was trying to describe an exotic location where the audience could believe a
tragic love story might happen. In modern times a definition of Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy. Tragedies are very sad and sometimes unexpected. The ancient Greeks invented tragedies as a type of drama that needed certain rules to make it more powerful. They believed the action of a play had to be completed in a day and the drama had to produce catharsis. Catharsis is the purging of emotions and people are supposed to go the play and get so involved with the characters emotions and sympathise, that by the end they feel drained of their emotions and have ...
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tragic love story might happen. In modern times a definition of Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy. Tragedies are very sad and sometimes unexpected. The ancient Greeks invented tragedies as a type of drama that needed certain rules to make it more powerful. They believed the action of a play had to be completed in a day and the drama had to produce catharsis. Catharsis is the purging of emotions and people are supposed to go the play and get so involved with the characters emotions and sympathise, that by the end they feel drained of their emotions and have been purified. There needed to be a tragic hero who could be the main character and would be a noble man of stature who through his tragic flaw is brought down or often killed. The tragic flaw is a fault in his character and the tragic hero displayed hubris, or overwearing pride. The ancient, olympian gods did not like this and wanted to see the mortal 'brought down to earth". Romeo and Juliet has features of a traditional tragedy. The action is compressed into five days to make the drama more powerful. Romeo is an impulsive character but does not fit the mould of a tragic hero because he is not somebody who is well respected or a king etc. but he is not a bad person, "Verona smiles upon you" and he shows great arrogance about fates warnings, showing great hubris. Many aspects of love are shown throughout Romeo and Juliet. The first two characters that the audience are introduced to are servants, Sampson and Gregory. They use sexual puns. This is because all sorts of people would come to Shakespeare's plays, and he had to keep them all happy. It was done for the lower classes to give some humour for the audience at the start of the play and act as a warm up. They are vulgar and crude and make many sexual references. They don't see love as involving emotions or desires, but purely as a sexual and physical thing, not emotional. Sampson refers to women as "weaker vessels" and says how he will rape the maids of the Montague household, as shown in the quotes "Women being the weaker vessels are ever thrust to the wall", "I will push Montague's men from the wall, and thrust his maids to the wall". It seems neither Sampson nor Gregory appear to have ever experienced true love. They talk in a crude manner and don't see women as people, but objects. Their perception of love is based solely on lust. Another character who has similar views on love is Mercutio. Mercutio doesn't provide much help to the love of Romeo and Juliet because he doesn't know about it. He loves life and makes the most of each day. He is constantly punning and his love for words and puns is shown to it's full in his speech about Queen Mab and even on his death bed. He shows his love for puns when he calls Tybalt "good king of cats" and says "Tybalt, you rat catcher", this is because there is a story with a cat called Tibalt in it, a rat catcher. He thinks that Romeo is wasting his time with Rosaline, and mocks him. Like Sampson and Gregory he considers live only in sexual terms rather than emotions, shown in his crude language. The Nurse is also similar in her use of language. She tells a story about Juliet falling on her face, the story is rude but the nurse enjoys telling it, finding it very amusing. The story is about when Juliet fell on her front as a young girl and the Nurse's husband asked Juliet if she will learn to fall onto her back when she is older, implying physical love, to which Juliet replies that she will. "And yet I warrant it had upon it brow A bump as big as a young cock´rel´s stone, A perilous knock, and it cried bitterly. 'Yea´, quoth my husband, 'fall´st upon thy face? Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age, Wilt thou not, Jule?´ It stinted and said 'Ay´." Mercutio mocked Romeo over his infatuation over Rosaline but he still cares for him and shows brotherly love and friendship. When Romeo is not willing to fight Tybalt, Mercutio fights for him. Benvolio also shows this and after Romeo had killed Tybalt, Benvolio tried to speak up for his friend. The Nurse is also often vulgar and crude like Mercutio, but she truly cares for Juliet. The relationship between the Nurse and Juliet is just like a mother-daughter relationship. The Nurse has raised Juliet as if she were her own daughter. It was a very common feature in the aristocratic society in Elizabethan times for a nurse to raise children in the family. For Juliet the Nurse is like her best friend. Romeo has the Friar to confide in and the Friar acts like a father to Romeo. Friar Lawrence marries the couple and tries to help them whenever possible. He wants the best for them and thinks that if they marry then possibly the feuding will end; "In one respect I´ll thy assistant be: For this may so happy prove To turn your households´ rancour to pure love" The friar tells Romeo not to rush things with Juliet, but when Romeo asks him to marry them he agrees. The friar approves of their love and truly cares about what happens to Romeo and Juliet. The friar and Nurse effectively act as substitute parents by comforting and advising the lovers. Juliet and her mother, Lady Capulet, however, do not seem to have such a close relationship. It is shown that the Nurse obviously has a closer relationship with Juliet than Lady Capulet when Lady Capulet doesn't know how old Juliet and the Nurse does. "Tis since the earthquake now eleven years And she was weaned, I never shall forget it, Of all the days of the year, upon that day; For I had then laid wormwood to my dug". This quote also shows that the Nurse weaned Juliet as a baby and breastfed her, she's practically her mother. The Nurse has the closer relationship with Juliet because she is the one who has brought her up. Early on, Juliet feels that she must please her mother by obeying her every wish. As the play progresses we see that Lady Capulet has clear ideas of what she considers best for her daughter. She sings the praises of Paris to Juliet and seems less interested about whether the couple will love each other but more concerned with how suitable the husband is. This would not have shocked or suprised members of the audience though as this was a very typical feature of life at the time. Another type of love shown in the play is unrequited love which is shown in Romeo's behaviour at the start as he mopes over the unattainable Rosaline. Romeo is infatuated with her. Romeo thinks he is in love with her but she returns no similar feelings towards him, "Out of her favour where I am in love." Romeo presents Rosaline almost as being a perfect woman, and believes she will not be hit by Cupid's arrow and lives unharmed, rich in beauty. As we never meet Rosaline we are left to think what kind of woman she really is and what she looks like. While he is still infatuated with Rosaline he locks himself in his room and keeps the windows closed, enclosing himself in the dark, blocking out any light. Shakespeare uses this as a contrast between light and dark and Juliet seemingly becomes the light in his life. "O she doth teach the torches to burn bright!". It seems Romeo is in love with being in love and the audience would recognise him as a stock character, the lover. Arranged love is another aspect of love shown in "Romeo and Juliet". This is the type shown between Juliet and Paris, a feature of aristocratic life in Shakespeare's time. Arranged love is almost nothing to do with true love and more about wealth and family status. Women were almost commodities to be traded. Virginity was important because it made a woman more valuable and a 'purer product'. In Elizabethan plays the forced husband character, in this case Paris, is usually not very loving and mean but he is particularly nice and Shakespeare complicates things like this because Paris becomes a worthy love rival. In Elizabethan times girls were expected to do as they were told by their parents. When we're first introduced to Juliet she acts like this and she always does what she is told and always acts with great courtesy, "Madam, I am here. What is your will?". Her attitude changes when she meets Romeo though because it is love at first sight and she doesn't act like her normal self. Juliet is also no longer willing to accept an arranged marriage. The parents are angry at this and Lord Capulet threatens to disown her. Because of the way girls were expected to behave, Shakespeare's attitude to this is that she's been good all her life and now that she's met Romeo a power has over come her. This is because the relationship between Romeo and Juliet is true love and is the only example of this throughout "Romeo And Juliet". The couple even share a sonnet when they first meet, showing their instant connection. They go against their parents and the feud when they fall in love. Romeo even risks his life to see Juliet when he climbs over the wall into her garden. Juliet chooses Romeo over her family and is willing to be disowned. Romeo tries not to fight Tybalt because he is Juliet's cousin, "Tybalt, the reason I have to love thee…". Juliet is prepared to take the potion to make her seem dead for the plan to work although she is terrified of being in the tomb with all the dead bodies. When Romeo first saw her he questioned if he ever loved before when hours before he was seemingly madly in love with Rosaline, "Did my heart love 'til now?". All these things show signs that they truly love each other. They died together and it was believed by Elizabethans that if you died together your souls mingled. Although there are many themes of love in "Romeo and Juliet", hate also plays a very big part. The family feud represents hate in the play and hate runs through the city because of the feud. The Capulets and Montagues are prepared to fight, even kill each other, for the sake of family pride. There isn't a lot of family love within the families, there is just family pride. Although the Montagues and Capulets hate each other, there is a sense of honour and respect between them. Lord Capulet can still sing Romeo's praises at the party, "Verona brags of him, To be a virtuous and well-governed youth". Hate is introduced to the play right from the start, shown between the servants. "I will bite my thumb at them - which is disgrace to them, if they bear it". This shows hate because in Elizabethan times, to bite your thumb at someone would be very offensive. The character Tybalt shows alot of hate, when he sees Romeo at the party he sets his sights on getting Romeo back, "What dares the slave, Come Hither, covered with an antic face, To fleer and scorn at our solemnity? Now by the stock and honour of my kin, to strike him dead I hold it not a sin". He then kills Mercutio when Romeo refuses to fight him. Lady Capulet intends to hire an assasin to poison Romeo. If it hadn't been for the feud and all the hate, the relationship between Romeo and Juliet would've been alot easier, they wouldn't have had to see each other in secret, have a risky plan etc. Although not mentioned in the title fate played an important part in Romeo And Juliet and is one one of the key factors. Greeks believed that your life was planned out for you and that fate was controlled by three godesses. One which spun the thread of life, one which measured the thread and Atropos, who cut the thread. In Elizabethan times they didn't believe this theory to be exactly true but they did believe your life was not in your control and was influenced by Fate. The Elizabethans also believed it was possible you could see your future in the stars and that witches could predict the future. Because most people were not very well educated, they were frightened by the power of fate. The role of fate in Romeo and Juliet is a very big one. On top of everything else they were fighting fate. They are "star crossed lovers" from the start. Fate is against them. Juliet feels that fate was cruel to make her love an enemy, "my only love spring from my only hate". It was believed that curses had alot of power and Mercutio curses both their houses, "a plague a'both their houses". He says this curse three times making it more powerful. Even before the Capulet party Romeo has a feeling he shouldn't go, "My mind misgives the consequence yet hanging in the stars". Another example of the role of fate is when Juliet says her wedding bed will be her death bed,"Or if you do not, make the bridal bed, In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.". This became true, but the plan could've worked, and Juliet could've woke up earlier, but fate was always against them and is conspiring. Throughout the play all the themes of love, hate, tragedy and fate all add to full effect of the play. None are any are more important than others because without any of them the play wouldn't be what it is. The roles of love and hate are huge, the love between Romeo and Juliet and the family feud. Also the theme of fate, which is revealed right from the start in the very first sonnet, runs through the whole play, and in the meeting of Romeo and Juliet and eventually is what makes the play turn out to be a tragedy. And Romeo and Juliet being a tragedy, it gives the play a sad ending adding emotion and making it the tragic love tale.
