Romeo then continues on the same theme that Juliet is beautiful and bright, and that she stands out over anything else.
“It seems she hangs upon the check of night,
As a jewel is on an Ethiop’s ear.”
This refers to Juliet as being a bright jewel on the ear of an Ethiopian which again which is yet again showing the contrast between light and dark by describing Juliet as being bright. He is constantly emphasising this. The rest of the speech by Romeo is still playing upon the image of Juliet being bright and possessing beauty which is above everything else.
Next I am going to look at the speech by Juliet located at Act 4, Scene 1. This is were Juliet is telling us how she will do anything other than marrying Paris. The first thing that she says is
“O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,
From off the battlements of any tower,”
While the rest of the speech is following the same theme; that she would rather be tortured and put through hell e.g. “...go into a new made grave…” or “…chain me with roaring bears…” Juliet is obviously distressed at the thought of marrying Paris, as these images would suggest, its showing us that she would rather face many of peoples worst nightmares than face hers.
The next speech that I’m going to look at is found at Act 4, Scene 3.It is the speech in which Juliet is about to take the sleeping potion, and she fears that things could go badly wrong. She firstly fears that the potion that the priest gave her was poison:
“What if it be poison whish the Friar,
Subtly hath minister’d to have me dead?”
This is telling us that she is starting to get paranoid, which is understandable as she is leaving her hands in the hands of the minister. She then tells us, if the potion is actually what the friar said it, she may wake to find herself all alone, with Romeo no were to be seen. This is were she really starts to fear for her life, fears that will leave her dead after breathing toxin air.
“Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,
To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breath in,
And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?”
She is obviously very scared at this point, I can tell this from the image that Juliet is giving us, an image of toxic fumes engulfing her until she chokes to death before she is reached by Romeo.
While the piece in this speech tells that she won’t be scared when she wakes, she’ll just play with the bones of her dead family.
“… madly play with my forefathers joints,”
This is such a great image, as it is so unusual. It’s hard to imagine Juliet sitting there playing with the joints of a man that has been dead, many years. The image that it has given us is insane; of a mad frenzy like a young girl playing with a rag doll. The whole range of images in the speech shows us that Juliet is really scared for her life and her sanity.
The final speech that I’m going to look at is Romeo’s final speech, just before he dies, which is found at Act 5, Scene 3. After slaying Paris he finds Juliet and is devastated even though he new that she was dead.
At this speech he refers to light but not in the way that he did at their first meeting.
“A Light’ning before death! O how may I
Call this a Light‘ning? O my love, my wife,”
Here Romeo means that he wants to capture the moment before death, and he is desperate to see Juliet when he is dead. The next piece of imagery is:
“Death, that hath suck the honey of thy breath,”
At this part Romeo is personifiaing death as a beast. What he means is that death takes away all of the goodness out of him and leaves him an empty man.
The speech then goes on in the same way until it reaches what I think is the best piece of imagery in this speech. It starts with “And death’s pale flag…” and ends with “...was thin enemy”
What Romeo is trying to say is that he has killed Tybalt and Paris and feels surrounded by death in the tomb so as a result he feels as if he has slain Juliet as a result.
I have come to the conclusion that the imagery really does make the play much more powerful and enjoyable. The images constructed help us to gain a better understanding of them and their experience. The continuous patterns of joy, love and fear help us to relate to the characters.
