During the play the audience experiences two brawls between the Montagues and the Capulets. Explain how these incidents show the intense hatred between the families and how Shakespeare uses these and other dramatic devices to create tension in Act I, scen

 We never actually learn when, where or why the fighting started, Tybalt would have good reason to be angry if the Montagues had slaughtered a load of Capulets in the past and the fighting was about that, but we never learn.   The tension springs from the fact that there is a brawl and that the Prince, when he enters, acts like a teacher telling off a rowdy class and trying to make them see what they’ve done. As soon as we learn of the punishment for fighting in this play we realise that, if Tybalt lets his temper go off again, there is definitely going to be someone who dies in this play. The fact that there is obviously a risk of someone getting seriously hurt in this brawl also creates its own amount of tension. The tension and hatred are very much linked in all scenes, however, as, without the hatred, there would be no fighting and no tension between the two families. All through the play up until the next fight scene we never see the families on stage at the same time except in Act I scene v where a riot almost kicks off.

In Act III scene i the fight is started by Tybalt, but there is a debate as to whether Mercutio plays a part in the aggression of the fight when he steps in to defend Romeo. There is also a question of whether he steps in because he doesn’t want to see Romeo, who he sees as a coward at this point, injured by Tybalt’s sword or whether he steps in because he wants to show Tybalt that at least one person is not afraid to fight him. The tension is when the anger inside Romeo is building up and there is a question of whether he will decide to fight Tybalt and answer his challenge and also when Romeo steps into the fight between Mercutio and Tybalt to stop it, and Mercutio gets killed. This shows sheer loathing when Mercutio, who is effectively a Montague, is making fun of Tybalt to Benvolio and when Tybalt turns up and wishes to fight one of the Montagues at the gathering. Their tempers flare up and, on the point of drawing swords, Romeo turns up so that the fight between Tybalt and Mercutio is postponed until Romeo refuses to fight. There is also a great amount of tension, created by the family fearing Romeo’s fate; he has killed another man, a crime punishable by the death sentence. But the prince is very lenient with Romeo, he takes into account that the boy has just sped up the course of the law and that the strike was dealt under stress from the death of his friend, so he turns the sentence to banishment. There is a chance that the prince only reduces the sentence as Romeo avenged the death of his own kinsman, but he does put forward good enough argument to convince the people and the audience that this is not the case. Although this is only a temporary source of tension, it is there to keep the audience on their toes.

It is a surprise that Benvolio, who had an earlier run-in with Tybalt, does not stand and take his chance to fight him. Benvolio never seems to wish to fight, although we hear Mercutio taunting him at the beginning of Act III scene i about the silly little things he has started fights over. From this we get the impression that Benvolio is scared of Tybalt and does not think that he could take him in a real fight. This is because, if Benvolio had the guts to take Tybalt, he may draw his sword and try to prove himself. Benvolio and Tybalt are sort of opposite numbers in the play, as we can see. The two families both have similar sorts of characters so that the audience can not be biased towards either one. This prevents blame being placed on either of the families and also increases dramatic effect.

Another point we come across is the language used by Shakespeare when we see the two families together. We see the revulsion between the two shown in what they say, “thou villain” being an example of such dislike. The language also shows the pointlessness of the brawl. No-one ever refers to how it started, so that is probably unimportant to them, and Mercutio taunting Benvolio at the beginning of the second fight scene shows that they will jump at any opportunity to pick a fight with the others family. Also in the language there is a sense of taunting, especially by the Montagues in the play. This is the main cause of the violence, the two sides are just looking for a chance to start a fight with the other, in hope of doing that little bit more damage. The language they use also shows the dislike of each other, especially in the first scene, where the Capulet servants on at the beginning use insults, but his is not the case in the face of their adversary. This fear of showing their dislike in front of their foes shows cowardice, as well as the fact that there is no courage in them until their kinsman enters. Tybalts language on its own is enough to spark off a brawl. He is one of the men who is not afraid to show his hatred as he obviously has great skill in fencing. He greets Romeo in Act III, scene i as a villain, which at the time was a great insult. He also is willing to, as I remarked on earlier, compare the Montagues to his feelings about hell, and to accuse Mercutio of consorting, which can be interpreted as sleeping with, Romeo. This however can also be interpreted as a musical ensemble; Mercutio deliberately mis-interprets this to mean him as a musician and goes on to talk about his fiddle stick, meaning his sword.

In Act I, scene v we see Tybalt’s temper flaring up, but this time it is because Romeo and a group of friends have come as masques to his uncles party, and he is offended by this. His uncle, however, seems to think of Romeo as a nice enough boy and prevents his nephew from starting something, even though it would hurt his archenemy Montague no end. So we find out that Capulet, who is head of the Capulet household, feels the least hatred, out of all the characters we meet, for the other household. We never meet a person in this play (with the exclusion of the apothecary) who is totally unaffected by the fighting. All people, including Friar Laurence, are affected by it; this shows the sheer scale of the violence. We also see that all people, however innocent, have had to take sides in the feud, whether it is because of relations, friends or family. By the end of the play we find ourselves wondering whether the feud was worth all the effort the families put in to it, causing themselves endless grief and a lot of stress. The families themselves think that it is worth doing and that they should not stop. They think that right up until the end. The conclusion we draw from the earlier parts of the play is that the Capulets and Montagues are at war, that the hatred is unstoppable and that there is no escape within the city walls. But in the last scene, where Romeo and Juliet die, There is a sense of love between the families as each pledges a golden statue of the others offspring to be placed in Verona, the Capulet vs. Montague war has come to an end and the hatred has been eliminated as the loss was realized. Throughout the play we always see the families at war, so this is a shock to us. The audience never really understands the hatred and the ways that the families are always at war so they just accept things, as they are so when the families kiss and make up the accepted image is thrown. The only reason the families do make up is that they have lost their only hopes of children, Capulet says earlier “earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she”, making them realise how pointless the feud actually was and that there was no point in any more fighting.