Explore the ways Shakespeare makes Act3 Scene5 lines 126-204 dramatic and tense.
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Introduction
Explore the ways Shakespeare makes Act3 Scene5 lines 126-204 dramatic and tense. At this stage of the play, Romeo has just married Juliet in secret; also Romeo has been banished for killing Tybalt in revenge for the death of Mercutio, whom Tybalt killed. Soon after Tybalt's death, Lord and Lady Capulet arranged Juliet's marriage to Paris in a meagre attempt to cheer her up. Tybalt is Juliet's cousin, and Romeo her husband, so she is distraught when she finds out that Tybalt has been murdered and Romeo banished. She cries and cries, which is of course distressing for her parents, as a result her parent's decide to arrange a marriage to try and cheer her up and give her something to look forward to. However this does not have the desired effect, instead of cheering up Juliet it upsets her even more as she now has to worry about a way to delay the marriage of face breaking the law! When Lord Capulet realises that Juliet doesn't wish to get married, because he doesn't understand the reasoning behind her feelings, he feels angry and disappointed. Lady Capulet also gets upset when she talks to Juliet, because it appears to Lady Capulet that Juliet is just being ungrateful. ...read more.
Middle
This is an extreme example of Shakespeare's use of emotive language, and builds upon our impression of Lord Capulet as man angry and fierce man. Again as Lord Capulet anger grows so does the power of Shakespeare's emotive language, we grow more and more sorry for Juliet and we dislike Lord Capulet ever more; also Lord Capulet is breaking communication with Juliet which is symbolic of his broken life. Shakespeare mainly uses varied punctuation to make certain words stand out, he emphasises important parts. At the beginning of this extract the punctuation is varied and follows no certain pattern, just like it would be in a normal conversation. However later on in the extract, when Lord Capulet starts becoming angry his varied punctuation becomes more pronounced, "Proud - and I thank you - and I thank you not - and yet not proud?" In this quote Shakespeare uses punctuation to split up each part of what Lord Capulet is saying so that we read what he is saying more carefully and pay more attention to it, this change in punctuation makes it stand out. Also the punctuation gives us the impression that Lord Capulet is angry, so angry in fact that he is having difficulty in getting his words out, the dash shows us that he is pausing to think of what he is going to say next. ...read more.
Conclusion
This breaking would be symbolic of the now broken relationship between him and Juliet. When Juliet begs her father upon her knees, line 158-159, the actress playing Juliet should remain upon her knees and begin to sob whilst her father further insults her, lines 160-169. At the point when Lord Capulet calls Juliet a "curse" and Nurse steps in and says, "God in heaven bless her! You are to blame, my Lord, to rate her so," the actress playing nurse should put her arm around Juliet in a 'motherly' way, this would show the watcher that when Juliet's biological mother should have been there to help Juliet it was Nurse who stood by her, and became her 'mother'. It would also show the watcher how much Nurse cares for Juliet. In conclusion I would say that Shakespeare does indeed succeed in making Act3 Scene 5 lines 126-204 dramatic and tense. I believe that his use of emotive language is his most important technique in doing this as it both helps to give the characters depth, and makes us see the characters as Shakespeare wanted them to be seen, which is of great importance for the play to be interpreted correctly. ?? ?? ?? ?? Greg Cox 11T 10/05/2007 ...read more.
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