Discuss the use of dramatic devices in act 3 scene 1 of Romeo and Juliet and how they are used to present the theme of conflict. Why is this scene important to the play as a whole?

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Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Discuss the use of dramatic devices in act 3 scene 1 of Romeo and Juliet and how they are used to present the theme of conflict. Why is this scene important to the play as a whole?

‘Romeo and Juliet’ is a tragic love story of two young people who are ever much in love, that are not allowed to be together, because their families are enemies. This leds to the death of these young lovers. The play was written somewhere between 1594-1596 during this time there were many wars taking place such as the Spanish Armada. Also in this time there were many well known rich families that were enemies and many people knew of these families conflicts. So therefore many people could relate to the story of Romeo and Juliet in some way because they either knew of or were part of families just like the Montagues and Capulets. Also many men in the sixteenth century carried weapons with them, this resulted in many violent and fatal fights between people, and the audience could also relate to Romeo and Juliet because of the fighting as they may see fights like the ones in the play often. Also it wasn’t only rich people that went to the theatre poorer people did as well and they maybe couldn’t relate to the story as well but would have seen a lot of this conflict taking place and could relate to it in that way.

In the lead up to Act 3 Scene 1 many things have taken place. For example a Capulet party has taken place and the Montague boys and Mercutio attended uninvited. At this party Romeo a Montague met Juliet a Capulet. They fall in love at first sight, later that evening Romeo visits Juliet and proclaims his love to Juliet she recipicates this and they agree to be married. The next day Romeo meets with the Friar Lawrence and tells him that he wishes to be married to Juliet friar Lawrence agrees to take the ceremony and Juliet and Romeo are married that day. After Romeo leaves the wedding this is when the fight scene takes place. The dialogue at the beginning of this scene which takes place between mercutio and Benvolio is sort of funny as Mercutio is teasing Benvolio, he does this by explaining how Benvolio gets very angry and wound up at the slightest thing he gives examples such as ‘thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes’. In this quote he also uses a pun, which helps to set the scene as being funny. The pun is that he uses the word nut and hazel together both with different means but its funny because there is a hazel nut. Although the atmosphere which is created at the start of the scene is happy there is this tension that something bad could happen because of Benvolios statement which was ‘the day is hot, the capulets are aboard, and, if we meet, we shall not scape a brawl’. This gives a sort of tension in the air.

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The impression the audience are given of Mercutio and Benvolio is a good one they are happy even though Mercutio is teasing Benvolio but it seems that Mercutio wants a fight to happen, as he doesn’t seem to care about bumping into the Capulets.

The tone of the play changes quite considerably when Tybalt arrives it suddenly seems to turn quite nasty. Because Tybalt arrives asking for a word with them in quite a hostile manner and Mercutio antagonises Tybalt by messing with the words he says for example Tybalt said ‘a word with one of you’ and Mercutio replies ...

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