In this scene there are 6 main characters. Sampson, Gregory, Abram, Benvolio, Tybalt and the Prince. As the fight gets bigger the structure of the play changes. In the beginning there is not a lot of punctuation and the lines only take up one line each ‘they must take it in sense that feel it’. Where as at the peak of the fight the amount of punctuation increases and the amount of speech each character has increases ‘What, drawn and talk of peace. I hate the word, as I hate hell, all Montague’s, and thee. Have thee, coward’. One of the characters, Tybalt uses very little punctuation. This shows that he is very confidant and doesn’t care what other people think of him.
In Act 1 Scene 1 the characters are looking for a fight. They are lower class, servants and speak in a more chatty way. We start with Sampson and Gregory talking about macho subjects ‘I will be civil with the maids’. This makes us the audience think about their status’s as it is a great contrast from the prologue which is written in verse. In my eyes Sampson really started the fight. I can tell this by ‘let us take the law of our sides, let them begin’ this tells us that Sampson is scheming and wants them to start the fight, so they don’t get the blame. It also makes us feel that he is very aggressive and sly.
Through out the scene 1.1 tension builds as more characters enter onto the stage. The first time we see the tension really build up is when Tybalt ‘turn thee, Benvolio, look upon thy death’ he threatens death upon Benvolio within his first line. It’s almost as if he encourages the fight, looking for a reason to start the fight. Then when the prince enters his power is shown by the sudden complete drop in the tension and how much he can control them ‘Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,’
At the time Shakespeare wrote this play it was the Elizabethan era. The audience would have picked up on language changes and juxtaposing a lot more easily. It the two scenes that we are studying (Act 1 Scene 1 and Act 3 Scene 1) I think that the type of violence would have really shocked the audience. For example in 1.1 Sampson says ‘I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I bite my thumb sir’. At that time this would have been the equivalent of the middle finger and would have been considered very rude. In scene 3.1 when Mercutio is murdered and then Tybalt it would have been very violent and the actors would have made it a very disturbing experience to watch.
The language in Act 3 Scene 1 is different to the first scene. In this scene the language is more formal than the chatty language in the first scene. The speech that Mercutio makes before he dies is in prose, not poetic, ‘ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man’. It is not in different lines, it just carries on across the page with punctuation in between. Compared to Tybalt’s speech which is formal and direct. But the odd thing is that when Romeo speaks, the language changes back to verse.
The same people are involved in the fight in 3.1 as they were in 1.1. Once again Tybalt is out for a fight ‘that thou hast done me, therefore turn and draw.’ He is challenging Mercutio to a fight but not actually starting it which is sort of what Sampson and Gregory were doing in the first scene. Unlike the first scene where Tybalt was the one who started the insults and taunting, in this scene Mercutio is winding him up. ‘Here’s my fiddlestick, here’s that shall make you dance. ‘Zounds, consort!’ he is taking the making fun out of Tybalt which we as the audience are sure that it is just going to make him mad.
Like in the last scene the tension is built up when Tybalt enters the stage, as it does in this scene. We can tell this by Mercutio line ‘.By my heel I care not’. Romeo then brings the tension down again because he knows that it was not going to end well, which it doesn’t. the fight then builds up the tension and it suddenly goes down when Mercutio gets stabbed. It contrasts to the first scene because in the first scene there is no serious violence where as this scene has a much higher calibre of violence. The beginning of the scene would have been very humorous to an Elizabethan audience where as the fight scene would have had them on the edge of their seats.
In conclusion there are many ways in which Shakespeare uses violence in his play. He shows it to the audience through the actors and language and I the way it is performed. I think he did this so that we as reader and audience can see what he is trying to show without actually seeing it.
