Mercutio’s significance in the play is also apparent though the drama and humour he adds to the play. Act One Scene Four is a good example of this element of his character where he adds drama though his wordplay because it creates such vivid and unpleasant images to foresee the inevitable tragedy of the play. This is seen when Mercutio talks about Queen Mab. Queen Mab was a fairy queen who would fly over sleeping beings and make them dream, but sometimes tainted their dreams into nightmares. During the speech Mercutio says that Queen Mab “bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs” (I.IV.90) of horses, this shows Mercutio turning the speech from being about what Queen Mab was making them dream about into what Queen Mab was forcing them to have nightmares of or cursing those having sexual dreams. Another example of this transformation can be seen when Mercutio says that Mab makes maids who sleep on their backs “women of good carriage” (I.IV.94) which means that Mab makes the maids very fertile, again the transformation is obvious because there was little reason for the topic to change into a sexual nature.
The humour in Mercutio’s persona can be observed in Act Two Scene One where he makes fun of Romeo’s apparent obsession for Rosaline by using lots of vulgarity and sexual imagery, a good example of this humour is right at the start of the scene where Mercutio says that Romeo is wise and “hath stolen him to bed” (II.I.5) which means that Mercutio thinks that Romeo has gone to sleep with Rosaline although he went to see Juliet. Another scene, which shows Mercutio’s humour is Act Two Scene 4 where the nurse comes for Romeo and Mercutio makes fun of Romeo and makes lewd comments about the nurses, looks. A good example of Mercutio’s lewd comments is when Peter (the nurse’s aide) is asked to conceal her face with a fan and Mercutio says “Good Peter, to hide her face, for he fans the fairer face” which shows his uncaring personality where he is rude to a woman which is disrespectful in every society.
Mercutio also represents an alternative view to love, a much more cynical and pessimistic view compared to Romeo and Juliet’s view. A good example of Mercutio’s view of love is in Act One Scene Four before Mercutio starts the “Queen Mab speech”, when Romeo is asked to help them with the performance to be able to enter the party which was required if you were to gatecrash a party. However Romeo refuses because he says he has “a soul of lead” and complains about his unrequited love for Rosaline saying it is too “rough, too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like a thorn” and Mercutio’s reply is “If love be rough with you, be rough with love. Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down” (I.IV.27) this reply is a good example of Mercutio’s view of love. His reply means that the way to get the better of love is to attack love for attacking you, so not be gentle just use it for sex and be lustful.
Another scene which illustrates Mercutio’s view of love is Act Two Scene One when Romeo has just escaped Mercutio and Benvolio and to try to make Romeo show himself Mercutio starts insulting apparent love of Rosaline. He does this by making comments like “If love is blind, then love can never hit the mark” (II.I.33) by this he is talking about Romeo’s fear of speaking to her thus meaning there not being a relationship just to infuriate him. However he doesn’t so he continues to make crude comments about his love, for instance Mercutio says that “now he will sit under the medlar tree” (II.I.34) which Mercutio is punning for meddling, which meant sexual activity.
Mercutio’s significance is also illustrated by his connections to all the main themes of the play. The main themes of the play are tragedy, tragic love and fate and Mercutio represents each one in a different way. Mercutio’s speech in Act One Scene Four about Queen Mab shows the theme of tragedy the best. When Mercutio says that soldiers dream about “cutting foreign throats” (I.IV.83) and “of breaches, abuscadoes, Spanish blades” (I.IV.84) the talk of death is a good example of how the tragedy is represented, because later in the play there are four deaths all are major characters, including Mercutio.
Mercutio also shows the theme of tragic love in Romeo and Juliet. Act Two Scene Four uses Mercutio’s speech to show this. When Romeo enters the scene, Mercutio begins to insult Romeo again about his love by insulting historic beauties, “Dido a dowdy, Cleopatra a gypsy, Helen and Hero hildings and harlots” all of these were considered to have great beauty in their own times and Mercutio is saying that they are all ugly compared Romeo’s apparent love Rosaline, however all of the women also die in their respective story for their love of a man, which gives us a little insight of what happens later in the play.
The other major theme of “Romeo and Juliet” is the theme of fate; Mercutio provides one of the best illustrations of this in the whole play in Act Three Scene One. One example of fate in the scene becomes apparent when Benvolio says “The day is hot, Capels are abroad, and if we meet, we shall not ‘scape a brawl” (III.I.2) which clearly shows what the fate of the scene is because of the mix between the heat, the Capulets and the Montagues. Also in Act Four Scene One at the start Mercutio talks about Tybalt and his request for a duel with Romeo and begins to insult him about his swordfighting techniques and calls him “a very good whore!” Which tells the audience about the swordfight in Act Three Scene One and it is ironic that Mercutio insults his swordfighting skill like saying sarcasticly that he is “a gentleman of the very first house” which is the best house of fencing and then ends up being murdered by him in a duel.
Possibly the biggest significance of Mercutio in the play is how he is used as a catalyst for the tragic events. Act Three Scene One example is his death scene. He is seen as the catalyst in three ways, the events and his actions, his language and the wordplay of Mercutio and when they are all used together is triggers the tragedy of his death. The events and his actions are the important in Act Three Scene One; one event that affects the scene greatly is the timing of Tybalt’s entrance which is just before Romeo appears, this gives Mercutio time to infuriate Tybalt and for Tybalt to anger Mercutio. It is this entrance which is the event which leads to the fight. Then Romeo enters while Mercutio and Tybalt are still angry at each other, however just after Romeo’s arrival Tybalt does not seem to want to fight when he says to Mercutio “peace be with you, here comes my man” (III.I.56) which suggests that it is mainly Mercutio’s fault that he fights and dies because from what is said Tybalt doesn’t have a quarrel with him. The timing of his arrival is extremely important because if Romeo was with Mercutio from the beginning of the scene the fight could have well been avoided given that if Romeo was with Mercutio he would have been able to stop Mercutio from getting so angry and stopped the fight, although Romeo may have ended fighting Tybalt instead.
Mercutio’s language and how it is used for dramatic effect shows how strong of a catalyst Mercutio is, for instance Mercutio says “By my heel I care not” in reply to Benvolio’s warning of Tybalt’s arrival, which shows how little fear Mercutio has for Tybalt, which adds a little to the possibility of a fight. The best example of how the language helps the fight start is Mercutio’s reply “O calm, dishonourable vile submission” (III.I.73) to Romeo’s peacefulness, if this wasn’t said the fight would have most likely not have taken place because it would seem that Mercutio now thinks that he must fight Tybalt for Romeo’s honour and triggers the start of the fight. Also after Mercutio’s fatal wound is struck he says “A plague o’ both houses” (III.I.93) which is cursing both Capulets and Montagues for his death, and the curse is carried out later with the suicides of both Romeo and Juliet, which means that the whole scene is the catalyst for every tragic event later in the play including Romeo’s exile for killing Tybalt.
The wordplay of Mercutio probably affects the outcome of the scene the most because Mercutio at the start is constantly turning Tybalt’s insults against him using very clever means, for example Mercutio replies to Tybalt “Consort? What, dost thou make us minstrels” (III.I.46) and carries on to say “Here’s my fiddlestick, here’s that shall make you dance” (III.I. 48) after Tybalt asks him where Romeo is because he “consortest with Romeo” (III.I.45). When Mercutio asks “consort?” he purposely misunderstands Tybalt and thinks that he is talking about playing an instrument just to patronise Tybalt, also Mercutio talks about his fiddlestick and making Tybalt dance, he is talking about his sword and fighting Tybalt. This is trying to provoke Tybalt. Also when Mercutio has been fatally wounded he makes jokes about his death such as “ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man” (III.I.98) which not only shows his personality but slightly encourages Romeo to fight.
In conclusion I believe that Mercutio is one of the more complex characters in the play “Romeo and Juliet”. I think Mercutio as a person is very short-tempered but also likes to light heartedly insult his friends and irritate his enemies, a good example of him infuriating his enemy is when he plays on Tybalt’s words in Act Three Scene One. Yet Mercutio is also very noble and stands up for Romeo on many occasions, the best instance being when Romeo backs down from a fight with Tybalt and Mercutio decides to fight him to try to regain some of Romeo’s lost dignity. Mercutio also has a great influence over Romeo through out the play. The real first instance is when he is able to persuade Romeo to go to the party where Benvolio couldn’t, which shows a small an influence Benvolio has over Romeo, the best example of Mercutio’s influence is after his death, where Romeo feels he has to avenge him even though he knows Juliet would be distraught, showing that Mercutio can reach Romeo better than Juliet could at that point in the play, I also believe that Mercutio’s death has at least a small effect on Romeo’s choice to commit suicide because with the apparent death of Juliet at that point and the death of his best friend Romeo would have had very few people to speak to about the deaths and to console him. I think Mercutio is quite successful when showing the themes of the play, like the theme of tragedy and fate are shown very well with his death, and the theme of tragic love is made known in two scenes, his speech about the great ancient beauties and his own death with Romeo’s reaction and sorrow. These all help predict the biggest part of the play, the deaths of Romeo and Juliet because after Mercutio’s death the play gets darker and introduces more sorrow, such as Romeo’s exile then Juliet’s marriage announcement and the loss of the message to Romeo about Juliet’s fake death and finally the double suicide.