Romeo and Juliet is different to any other play by Shakespeare as does not include a strong character for example ‘Macbeth.’ Also the play differs as it uses two teenagers for the main characters which Shakespeare does not do in any of his other plays. Another difference would be that there was no fatal flaw used Romeo and Juliet died because they felt guilty of love and their families.
Act 3 scenes 1 and act 1 scene 1 are parallel to each other as they are both fighting scenes and are both at vital points in the play.
Act 3 scenes 1 happens in the middle of the play as it is the biggest fight scene of the play and it done in this way as all the tension of the 2 families builds up throughout a few scenes and just explodes. The scene was put in the middle of the play as Shakespeare wanted the focus on love to be in the rest of the play as fighting would take your mind of the true meaning of Romeo and Juliet, love. In the original fight scene the Prince threatens to kill the family who starts the next fight but as they later find out he was lenient and only banishes Romeo from Verona.
This builds up dramatic tension in the play as you think the prologue must have been told wrongly and Romeo dies now but the Prince changes his mind so the play carries on.
The marriage of Romeo and Juliet is before the biggest fight scene of the play, this is a huge contrast to the plot as the scene before is all loved up and then bang family members are dead. This creates huge dramatic tension as the audience as wondering about Romeo and Juliet’s marriage after the murder of Tybalt and Mercutio.
Act 3 scene 1 is one of the most important scenes of the play as this shows two families fighting on the streets of Verona after the prince says ‘Your lives shall pay on the forfeit of peace.’ The concern of the audience in this part of the play is greatly increased as the main characters of the play with a high status in society are fighting which brings dramatic tension.
In this scene Benvolio and Mercutio are mentioning that the temperatures are hot and these shows by Benvolio telling Mercutio that he should ‘retire.’ Mercutio mentions that ‘for these days hot’ which brings up the idea that tension has been building between men and families as temperatures make things hot and rises tempers. Benvolio also mentions that ‘we shall not scope a brawl’ meaning that the fight is inevitable, the reason we know this is because ‘shall not’ is a modal verb.
When the scene opens Mercutio is seen describing a person who the audience knows to be himself which creates dramatic irony. Mercutio is in a playful mood which will provoke the Capulet’s as the temperature brings tension to the play. This brings dramatically effective as the audience knows a brawl is arising.
Tybalt shows up in the scene that is in a provocative mood which makes dramatic tension arise as he is being polite to the Montague’s which means he is taking the Mick out of them and the audience question what he is doing. Mercutio is also looking for a fight as we are shown when he replies to his own friends rudely as this is shown in prose showing lack of respect. Mercutio questions his own family and friends which shows he is looking for a fight which creates further tension as Tybalt will be mocked more which the audience knows will cause a fight, this creates dramatic tension with the audience as they know what is going on but the characters don’t know as much.
When Benvolio tries to stop Mercutio he just simply replies with NO and showing the audience that he wants a fight with the Capulet’s. the audience knows that the tension id building as Benvolio tries to stop him but he wouldn’t creating dramatic tension between the audience and the characters.
After this situation Romeo comes into the scene which creates more dramatic tension as Tybalt is mocked even more now by Mercutio. After this mocking goes on Tybalt starts to call Romeo names himself such as ‘boy’ this creates tension as he is a member of his family and he doesn’t know it. This is called dramatic irony as Romeo hasn’t done anything wrong and Tybalt picks on his own family. But Romeo knowing the secret does not rise to this mockery as he replies with ‘love thee’ showing his relationship to the family but Tybalt just takes it as a mockery.
Romeo is then asked to ‘draw’ by Tybalt and then replies ‘love thee’ again which infuriates Tybalt more as he thinks he is mocking the Capulets which is irony as he is one.
Romeo and Tybalt then carry on to argue in Tybalt’s words but Romeo is actually trying to stop the fight but Tybalt doesn’t think this as they are rivalry families. Romeo pleas to Benvolio to stop the fighting but he cannot do anything as Tybalt is already infuriated and Mercutio has been waiting for a fight.
As Tybalt turns to leave he turns again and goes to stab Romeo but misses and hits Mercutio who is still in a joker mood.
When they realise that he is injured Mercutio curses both of the family’s houses. Mercutio joking around then shouts ‘a scratch, a scratch,’ which increase the dramatic tension as the characters do not realise how badly Mercutio is injured the audience realise just how bad he is injured and the characters do too. Mercutio still making jokes out of his injury as he dies he shouts ‘ your houses.’
This means that a plague has been set on the houses by Mercutio. The scene then speeds up after this point when Romeo becomes infuriated after Mercutio’s death as he was a good friend. Tybalt then returns on to the scene and the dramatic tension increases amongst the audience as they can feel another fight arising amongst the characters,
Romeo’ s mood changes when Tybalt returns as he is infuriated as he walks free after murder, during this fight no words are mentioned as Shakespeare want the focus on the fight not the literacy/language. During this fight Tybalt dies and the Prince arrives.
After this scene Romeo is banned from Verona, which makes the marriage hard but it means that the focus of the play is now on love and not hate of families. As a result of two members of different families the feud between the two ended, this shows that the families learnt their lessons before it went on for centuries.