The servants speak in prose in order to reflect their low status in the play. The scene consists of mainly short sentences and questions, used to create a dramatic impact and show the tension arising between the two families to the audience.
Romeo’s entrance and poetic language contrast dramatically with the previous scene. His pensive poetic language distinctively contrasts to Tybalts aggressive and hostile tones to add impact to Romeo’s entrance. The scenes also contrast through the themes of violence and romance. ‘Is the day so long? Ay me, sad hours seem long’ Romeo enters in a dreamy state of mind, with Shakespeare using rhetorical questions to portray his confusion to the audience. The way that he appears to have lost all sense of time suggests that there may be something bothering him and he can’t concentrate. Shakespeare may have wanted the audience at this point to believe that Romeo is talking of being ‘out of her favour where I am in love’ with Juliet as the audience know from the play’s title and the prologue that she is the girl Romeo dies for. Therefore, upon realising the woman Romeo claims he is in love with at this point is not Juliet, the audience may have been stunned and perhaps may be doubting Romeo’s later feelings for Juliet, which builds tension for when the couple meet . Shakespeare first presents Romeo to the audience as being quiet and melancholy. He uses negative phrases, such as ‘love is a smoke made from the fumes of sighs’ to express the feeling of unrequited love. The metaphor of love being a smoke suggests Romeo feels love is grey and suffocating. The theme of fire is used a lot by Romeo in this scene, ‘bright smoke, cold fire’ ‘fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes’ to continue this perception of love being overpowering.
Shakespeare fills Romeo’s elegiac language with clichés, oxymorons and personification. The contrasting effect of the oxymoron’s, ‘heavy lightness’ ‘loving hate’ ‘feather lead’, reflect Romeo’s mixed emotions. As the play is about the clash of opposites, oxymorons are particularly appropriate to ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Romeo used personification to express his adolescent feelings of confusion. To extend this, Shakespeare also uses hyperbole and exaderating language to help make Romeo’s ‘love’ seem childish and shallow. Romeo speaks of love being a ‘misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms’. Shakespeare uses this oxymoron to continue the idea that Romeo’s feelings have perplexed him and he has mixed emotions, turning order into chaos. Romeo’s entrance and language of a love-sick teenager would have made a great impression on the audience.
By adding Rosalin’s character to the play, Shakespeare adds a superficial element to Romeo’s character, but cleverly prevents this effecting the audience’s expectations for the rest of the play by never letting the audience see Rosalin. Romeo plays the role of being a Petrarchan lover, being in love with the idea of love and the audience would have recognised this 13th century poets writing coming through in Romeo’s character, which suggests Shakespeare may have used Petrarchan’s literature as inspiration for ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Romeo uses traditional ideas of love eg. ‘A choking gall’ suggesting love is a poison, to show the audience he is only fooling himself into believing he’s in love, and that rosalin is insignificant to the passion between Romeo and Juliet.
Act 1 scene 3 first introduces Juliet to the audience. Shakespeare starts the scene dramatically by Lady Capulet asking the nurse to call for her daughter ‘nurse, where is my daughter? Call her forth for me’. The fact that Lady Capulet asks nurse to do it for her suggests to the audience that Nurse is closer to Juliet than Lady Capulet and that maybe Lady Capulet has relied on Nurse to raise her child. Nurse calls Juliet a ‘lamb’ and a ‘ladybird’ so enforce their close relationship. The word ‘lamb’ also shows the audience that the Nurse still sees Juliet as being young and in nee of looking after. Shakespeare postpones Juliet’s entrance to give the audience an insight into her relationship with both Nurse and Lady Capulet. Juliet converses formally with her mother, calling her ‘madam’ to make the audience curious of their relationship. The scene is full of Nurse and Lady Capulet exchanging dialogue, and Juliet is presented as timid and childlike. Nurse seems to speak confidently, using lots of humour and often going off topic, sometimes humouring her employer, which contrasts to Juliet’s shy and withdrawn characteristics. Nurse reminisces, talking about many life experiences like marriage and breast-feeding that the audience would surely have related to and would realise that Juliet’s fate will never allow her to experience these things. Nurse speaks of Juliet’s fourteenth birthday coming up in two weeks, which is ironic in the way that Juliet will never make it. Juliet’s lack of conversation and minimal speech adds mystery to her character and leaves the audience inquisitive about her. To the audience, Romeo and Juliet’s characters at this stage differ dramatically. Whereas Romeo comes across as love-sick, dreamy and poetic, Juliet first appears to be young, reluctant to grow up and shy. This contrast would leave the audience wondering how the pair who appear so different, end up so in love. Shakespeare’s use of dramatic irony provided by the prologue ensures the audience know more than the characters themselves, which keeps the audience eager to find out how their story unfolds.
Act 1 scene 4 offers the audience alternative viewpoints to evaluate the play and adds a sense of foreboding. Mercutio acts as a foil to Romeo just as the nurse does to Juliet. Mercutio’s witty characteristics are personified in his use of puns and metaphors; ‘you are a lover, borrow cupids wings’. He includes many mythical characters into his speech, like cupid and queen Mab, which emphasises his faraway and starry-eyed character. His optimism and positive personality contrasts with bitter, violent one of Tybalts, creating a dramatic atmosphere later on for the audience when the two come head to head. Mercutio uses lots of sexual puns, for example, when he says ‘stand’ the Elizabethans would have acknowledged this as a slang way of talking about a male erection. One reason Shakespeare may have used this technique is to show his sexual joking helps to highlight the true love between Romeo and Juliet, adding further contrast to the scene. In addition to this, the character of Queen Mab herself shows themes of lust, greed and violence, which portrays her as being the exact opposite of both Romeo and Juliet, again adding contrast and dramatic effect.
The Queen Mab speech offers another alternative viewpoint. It turns the play into more of a performance with different aspects in it, instead of just a tragedy. I think Shakespeare added this part of the act in at a later date to help the audience appreciate that everyone has dreams, but Romeo and Juliet will never have the chance to live theirs. Some of the audience would have associated the character of queen Mab to prostitutes, and some would have likened her to a fairy, again offering a substitute viewpoint.
Romeo’s dream adds to the sense of premonition. As no one really knows what Romeos dream is about, Shakespeare leaves it to the audience’s imaginations to add dramatic effect in their own minds. The way the full extent of his dream is never revealed adds mystery and another alternative way to view the performance. The idea of fate is once again put to the audience as Romeo talks of ‘some consequences, yet hanging in the stars’ which will begin tonight (date). Romeo spookily predicts his ‘untimely death’ but shows excitement for what lays ahead, asking that ‘he that hath the steerage of my course, direct my sail!’ this statement may hint that Juliet was included in Romeo’s dream, and Romeo for sore the consequences of their meeting from the beginning. The dramatic irony that the audience hold from the prologue adds a dramatic value you Romeo’s speech by letting them acknowledge his predictions are correct. This creates a apprehension and ominous end to scene 4, building apprehension for scene 5.
There are two main dramatic themes that Shakespeare uses for dramatic effect on the audience throughout ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Love and hate. Never are these two emotions more prominent and contrasting than in act 1, scene 5.
Shakespeare’s technique of opening a scene with a low status character (i.e. Nurse or servants) is used here once again as in scene 1 and 3. This use of careful patterning would have been recognised by the audience and would remind them of scene 1 and its importance to the play. The contrast of Tybalts hate and Romeo’s love for Juliet is the most dramatic yet. Both themes reach their extremes in this scene. Tybalts language reflects his emotions when he hears Romeo’s voice. He speaks in an aggressive, blunt, impulsive manner that is full of hate. ‘Peace, I hate the word’ this phrase suggests to the audience that tybalt in unprepared to call a truce and is too caught up if the family rift to stop. This leaves the audience thinking ‘is he the cause of Romeo and Juliet’s deaths?’ In contrast, Romeo speaks passionately, using metaphors and symbolic words to express the true love he feels for Juliet.
Also in this scene, Shakespeare uses humour in the form of Capulet’s welcome speech to contrast to the romance and importance of what is about to come. All of these moods and emotions combined with the way Shakespeare has postponed the lovers meeting helps to build up the suspense of what the audience have been waiting for over the last 4 scenes; the lovers meeting.
Romeo and Juliet’s first encounter does not fail to reach and excel the audience’s expectations. From the first second he lays eyes on her, Romeo is fixated. He say’s ‘oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!’ Shakespeare uses this metaphor to comment on how beautiful Juliet is; not only does she herself shine a torch, she teaches others to do so also. This is another example of Romeo using hyperboles, which Shakespeare uses for dramatic effect to grip the audience. Romeo is trying to inform the audience that his love for Juliet is immense, saying she’s richer than anything, she’s worth more than the world and she’s heavenly. Shakespeare uses powerful images of wealth to try and do this, using metaphors like ‘as rich as a jewel in an ethiops ear’. The word jewel suggests Juliet is precious and rare and ethiops is an Elizabethan word for any black African, which the audience would have understood and recognised. Another wealth metaphor used is ‘beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear’. This suggests that Romeo sees Juliet as too good for the earth, which is perhaps relevant to their deaths. A typical Elizabethan audience would have been a member of the Anglican Church and believed in the idea of heaven, so by saying Juliet is too rich for the earth introduces the view that perhaps the couple’s deaths were fate to take them to a better place without the feud of their families. Using these metaphors creates dramatic images for the audience to associate love with.
The way Romeo describes Juliet is so different to the way he spoke about rosalin, it leads me to believe the feelings he has for Juliet and genuine and they truly are in love. Whereas he described rosalin as being a poison, he refers to Juliet as being his ‘holy shrine’. Romeo also says ‘I never saw true beauty until this night’ which shows that the way he is feeling about Juliet makes him realise his feelings for rosalin were childlike and superficial. This statement shows that Romeo has in some ways grown up since meeting Juliet and his feelings are absolute and serious.
The meeting of Romeo and Juliet dominates the scene, and, with dramatic religious imagery and language that captures the way they both feel, Shakespeare delivers to the audiences expectations he has dramatically set by delaying their meeting for an entire act. By doing this, Shakespeare has managed to build up tension and excitement, introduce the characters, and create a apprehensive atmosphere, all adding to the dramatic impact of scene 1.
The first conversation between Romeo and Juliet is an extended Christian metaphor. The religious overtones imply that their love can only be described through the vocabulary of religion and the association with God himself. However, Shakespeare also uses it to create drama in the audience. As a typical Elizabethan audience would be mainly made up of members of the Anglican Church, to them Romeo and Juliet’s religious imagery would have been classed as blasphemy. When Romeo says ‘oh then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do’, he’s comparing her to a saint that should be worshiped, which would have been seen as the sin of idol worship to the audience. Juliet then takes it one step further when she calls Romeo the ‘God of her idolatry’. At this point, the audience would have been shocked by such language and Shakespeare would have achieved in making this scene as dramatic as possible. However, using this imagery to a religious audience would also personify the sincerity of their love and prove to the audience that it’s authentic. Romeo presents himself as a pilgrim approaching the shrine of a saint. This metaphor shows that Romeo worships Juliet.
Their meeting is written in a shared sonnet to, once again, point out the importance to the audience and enhance the dramatic impact. As the prologue was also written in a sonnet, the audience would have linked the two and made the connection between their love and their eventual destiny. In addition to this, the shared sonnet implies their love is mutual and requited. Juliet uses the phrases ‘my grave is like to be my wedding bed’ which suggests that the love between Romeo and Juliet is marked not only as exceptional but also doomed from the start, reemphasising the theme of destiny. Juliet also says ‘my only love sprung from my only hate’. The word ‘sprung’ makes their love seem uncontrollable and inevitable, adding to the theme of fate.
Shakespeare manages to add even more dramatic tension by ending the scene with Nurse telling Juliet that Romeo is a Montague, leaving the act on a cliff hanger and the audience craving more.
Shakespeare succeeds in create a dramatic impact in act 1 of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in many different ways. By using different emotions that the audience can all relate to, he ensures the viewers are gripped to the play and by leaving the lovers meeting until the end of the act, ensures their anticipation and expectations for the rest of the play. The act is very important to the play because it introduces the key themes and characters, which sets the tone for the rest of the performance. The themes in Romeo and Juliet are still relevant to audiences today because the idea of uncontrollable destiny will always appeal to audiences around the world. The human race will always be able to associate themselves to the emotions of love and hate, meaning the play will always be important in not only literature, but also relevant to today’s culture. The fact that the play has produced many phrases and sayings proves this
. I think act 1 is extremely gripping and is exceptionally well written, with the end of the act leaving the audience desperate for more.
By Charlotte Davis
