After Capulet had finished the speech to his guests he met with one of his aged cousin. When the conversation began between Capulet and his aged cousin it showed the theme of age. They were talking about when last they went to a Masquerade Ball like this; ‘How long is’t now since last your self and I were in a mask?’ The effect of this on the audience is that it prolongs the time before the meeting of Romeo and Juliet. It does that because the audience is impatient for Romeo and Juliet to meet so it adds to the tension which is dramatically effective.
Romeo and Tybalt are the two most contrasting people at the party because Romeo is kind and shy and a ‘well governed youth’ and Tybalt is like bull in a china shop because he rushes into everything without thinking twice and always starts the fight. There are parallels between the two of them because Romeo is love and Tybalt is hatred.
In Act 1 Scene 5 there are parallels which you can spot such as Tybalt going to meet Capulet at the same time as Romeo goes to meet Juliet. There is also Romeo who is the sign of love and Tybalt the sign of hatred. Shakespeare does that so that Romeo and Juliet can meet without anyone knowing and so that they can still be ignorant to the fact that they are worst enemies. These juxtapositions are put in the play deliberately to add to the tension.
Romeo’s declaration of immediate love for Juliet has much more rich language than his previous declaration of his love for Rosaline. Romeo uses lines such as ‘Beauty to rich for use, for earth to dear.’ Shakespeare uses such rich language to describe Juliet because in Elizabethan times the women in the play used to be played by men so they had to over exaggerate to make them look even slightly beautiful. The language that Romeo uses all has references to light, night and beauty. A line such as, ‘O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright,’ implies all thereof the references that I have stated before.
Romeo and Tybalt use totally different language to each other. Tybalt always uses short and punchy syntax which doesn’t flow. Tybalt also keeps using words in his sentences like, scorn and solemnity; ‘To scorn at our solemnity this night.’ Whilst on the other hand Romeo has long and poetic syntax which flow like a river or stream. But they both have religious references in the language. This also tell you a lot about their character and what they are like most of the time in the play. Another thing about their language is that Tybalt says all the bad religious references like ‘sin’ and Romeo has references like ‘blessed’ which show that Tybalt is evil himself and Romeo is good.
When Romeo asked the serving man who Juliet, the serving man did not know. If the serving man had known who Juliet was, then Romeo would have found out that Juliet was a Capulet and a foe of the Montague household. Romeo would never have fallen in love with Juliet.
Shakespeare wrote the play so that the serving man did not know Juliet to increase the tension in that scene and allows the love story to develop keeping Romeo ignorant of the fact that Juliet is a Capulet. This technique that Shakespeare uses here is called stage craft. This is when a person in the play is made to act a certain way so that he will keep the characters guessing.
A device that Shakespeare uses to create tension is dramatic irony and this is a very effective way of displaying dramatic effectiveness in a play such as this. The meaning of dramatic irony is that as the play moves along the audience now what going to happen but the characters are unaware.
Another device that Shakespeare uses in his plays is staging. Staging is if some one is describing a girl in a play of his they have to stress the beauty of that girl because in Elizabethan times all the girls were played by men as I have already said before. Another type of staging is saying something like ‘More light you knaves’ to explain to the audience that it is night time.
Now we turn our attention to the speech between Tybalt and Capulet when Tybalt calls Romeo ‘that villain’ and talks to his uncle to get Romeo thrown out. Tybalt thinks of Romeo as a ‘villain’ but when Capulet speaks he is more balanced in describing Romeo as a ‘well-govern’d youth.’ This quote shows us that Capulet is still having a really good time and enjoying his beautiful banquet because his syntax is still long and flowing like a river; ‘content thee, gentle coz.’ When Tybalt starts to provoke Capulet by insisting to get Romeo thrown out by saying, ’I’ll not endure him,’ then Capulet turns on him and starts asking Tybalt ‘am I the master here, or you.’ You could tell that Capulet was getting annoyed because His syntax was breaking up and he couldn’t finish his sentences properly; ‘What, Goodman boy! I say, he shall: go to.’ Throughout the Speech Tybalt keeps using language such as; ‘A villain that is hither come in spite,’ or ’Tis that villain Romeo,’ and keeps going on bad mouthing Romeo to Capulet. Capulet uses a variety of language throughout this speech because in the start he was very calm and at the end he was much stressed.
At this point in time in the play the audience will be expecting a fight between Tybalt and Romeo and that builds up the tension because if Romeo dies fighting Tybalt then Romeo and Juliet and the play will fall apart. The discussion that Tybalt and Capulet have helps to stretch the tension over that period of time to add to the dramatic effect. It stretches the tension by making the speech heated and over a long period of time.
The dramatic effect on the pay of the meeting between Romeo and Juliet is that the tension is increased ten fold and the audience just wants to know what is going to happen next and they are glued to the play.
The language that Romeo and Juliet use during their meeting has a lot of religious references such as, ‘blessed.’ Romeo and Juliet share a sonnet which is known in the English language as a love poem which has fourteen lines. Both Romeo and Juliet echo each other during the sonnet which shows that they are equal and it also shows that they are made for each other and it is true love that they show for each other. The Religious references that they use
Up to this point in the play where Romeo and Juliet share a sonnet with each other Juliet has been very obedient to her parent and when they asked her to marry Paris she said ‘ it is an honour I dream not of.’ She said that because she had not even thought of getting married yet but she would do what ever her father said. When she meets Romeo she become disobedient to her father and does what ever she likes. Romeo on the other hand didn’t become disobedient but he just changed from a love sick dog, ‘That love, whose view is muffled still,’ to a person drowning in love, ‘Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!’ He said that because the Beauty he saw in Juliet was so intense that it overwhelmed him.
The audiences’ expectations at this moment in time in the play are that when Juliet’s father finds out that Juliet has gone against his will and fallen in love with another boy except Paris and he has proposed to her he will be furious and he will kill her when he gets his hands on her because in the Elizabethan times daughters were a possession to their parents to do as their parents ordered.
When Romeo and Juliet met for the first time it was love at first sight which Elizabethans thought to be true love. The love that Romeo shows for Juliet is a towering skyscraper compared to the love that he showed for Rosaline. This is because when he was in love with Rosaline she never loved him back so it couldn’t have been true love because in true love both of the people have to love each other for it to be true love.
While Romeo and Juliet were sharing the sonnet they were isolated from the rest of the characters and this added to the dramatic effect because they are alone and there is nobody around them so they meet and still be ignorant to the fact that they are a Capulet and a Montague who are enemies. On the stage If I was the director what I would have done is brought Romeo and Juliet to the front of the stage with the spotlight on them and put the rest of the characters at the back of the stage in the dark. This would heighten the effect by completely making them the centre of attention.
Now we turn our attention to the ending of the scene where Romeo and Juliet find out that they are enemies. Shakespeare uses another method of stagecraft when the nurse comes to tell Juliet that her ‘mother craves a word’ with her. Nurse says mother and not Lady Capulet to so that the time before they find out that they are enemies is prolonged and Shakespeare does that deliberately to add to the tension and therefore adding to the dramatic effectiveness. Romeo and Juliet’s reaction to each other when they find out who they have just fallen in love with are that they are shocked and Romeo says,’ My life is my foes debt,’ he said that because. This is the point where all of the tension is built up to because, the scene is all about Romeo and Juliet meeting and finding out that their families are sworn enemies.
The audience will want to know what will happen to Romeo and Juliet after they have found out who they are and that adds to the tension because you don’t know what’s going to happen. The dramatic irony at the point when they find out that they are enemies just adds to the tension because the audience already knows who they are but the characters don’t and that adds to the dramatic effect of the cliff hanger at the end of the scene as well. At the end of the scene there are the opposing themes of love and hate, youth and age and good and evil and the expectations of the audience are that Romeo and Juliet will meet again and there will be a fight between Tybalt and a Montague.
This scene is so crucial in the play that if it didn’t happen then the series of events which lead up to the dramatic ending of Romeo and Juliet both dying would have never started and therefore the play would have ended before it properly began. Shakespeare uses a lot of themes in this scene which are very crucial in the whole play and they are; love/hate, youth/age and good/evil. All of these themes are contrasting which adds to the tension and the dramatic effect. The characters that Shakespeare uses in this scene are also very crucial in the play because if Romeo wasn’t at the party that Capulet held then Romeo and Juliet would have never met and never fallen in love and if Tybalt never came then Mecrutio wouldn’t have been murdered by Tybalt and Romeo hadn’t killed Tybalt for killing Mecrutio. This just shows how crucial this scene is in the play. There is a lot of drama in this scene which builds up all of the tension leading to Romeo and Juliet meeting and them finding out that they have just fallen in love with their enemies. All of the contrasts in the scene are contrasting the themes and the language that Romeo and Tybalt use because Tybalt uses phrases like ‘sin’ and ‘villain’ while Romeo uses phrases like ‘snowy dove’ and ‘blessed.’
Using all of those tools Shakespeare engaged the audience by making lots of tension build up, putting lots of drama in the right places, using the right contrasting themes also in the right place this also build up the tension which is Dramatic effectiveness.
Universal themes that Shakespeare uses in Romeo and Juliet are still relevant to audiences today, for example if two people from different faiths love each other and their families hate each other then it is an example of love/hate.
My own opinions on this scene are that Romeo was very ignorant to the fact that the girl he had seen could have been anyone from the Capulet family including Juliet so he shouldn’t have fallen in love with Juliet at first sight. If I was the director of this play what I would do is have a Rotating stage with dividers which divide up the three parts of the hall. The first part of the stage would be for the speech that Capulet and Tybalt have, the second part of the stage would be the main part of the hall where every one is enjoying them selves and the third part of the stage would be where Romeo and Juliet meet. I would have the stage rotate when some one’s speech came up. That is how I would direct the scene.
