Shakespeare dramatically presents this scene by changing the tension from happy and joyful in the previous scene, to Benvolio worrying about getting into a fight. This brings the tension sharply up; when Mercutio starts being humorous such as when he replies to Benvolios “by my head hear come the Capulets” with “by my heel I care not”. The tension is then lowered again. When Romeo does not react to Tybalts challenge this is probably the second tensest point in the whole play. The only scene with more tension is when Romeo is seen at the Capulets banquet. We know that there is a lot of tension at this part of act 3 because of the way Tybalt is looking for a fight.
When Tybalt and Mercutio start speaking Tybalt is obviously looking for a fight so the audience would be starting to worry about the two brawling in the street and for the prince to have them killed. The reason Tybalt came out in to the streets was to look for Romeo. This is because he was angry about Romeo gate crashing the banquet. If we look back Tybalt said to his uncle, “This intrusion shall, now seeming sweet, convert to bitt’rest gall.” (“Bitt’rest gall” Meaning poison) This shows that Tybalt will do as he is told now, but will not forget. Shakespeare is also using this as a hint to what is going to happen at the end of the play.
When Romeo does not take Tybalt up on his challenge (which would have been uncommon for a man in the 1700’s) the other characters would probably have started laughing, either at Tybalt because he was being shown up, or Romeo for appearing to be backing down or being a coward. As an audience we would understand Romeo’s decision to back down because we know more than Tybalt, however we would be worried that Tybalt might react badly to his friends laughing at him. Romeo backing down could be seen as the cause of both Mercutio and Tybalt’s death as well as the banishment of himself, this is because Mercutio fought in the defence of Romeo mistaking his answer for cowardice.
When the fight finally does breakout between Mercutio and Tybalt, Romeo tries to stop the brawl but Mercutio stubbornly refuses to back down, as does Tybalt. This is what Romeo would have been expected to do rather than not take Tybalt up on his challenge. Mercutio sustains an accidental injury. When this happens the friars’ plan of uniting the families is completely useless whatever. Once Romeo discovers this he suddenly changes from peacemaker to war fighter. Romeo is powerless in the face of disaster; he knows what is right and wrong but he is compelled to revenge Mercutio. He reacts too quickly to the ever-changing situation without considering the consequences of his actions.
I think after looking at this scene that Shakespeare’s most manipulative strategy of changing our feelings has got to be the contrast in tension. He has changed our feeling so many times in this scene and I believe it is all due to the sharp contrast between one line and the next, before Tybalt and Mercutio started fighting everything had been going so well for Romeo, then suddenly he is facing what should have been a death sentence, but what is luckily later revealed as only a banishment.