Romeo unfortunately falls in love with Juliet, a Capulet whose family are bitter enemies of Romeo’s family the Montague’s. Shakespeare builds on the theme of fate by making Romeo blame Fate or misfortune for nearly everything that goes wrong; after he kills Tybalt, he then realises the seriousness of his action but prefers to blame the stars rather than himself.
O, I am fortune's fool".
When he hears from Balthasar the news that Juliet is dead he says, "Then I defy you stars", meaning he is not going to let Fate determine what happens to him anymore.
However Shakespeare changes this emphasis with regards to Juliet’s character. The character of Juliet shifts blame on to her birth rather than fate as we can see in the rhyming couplets
"Prodigious birth of love is to me,
That I must love a loathed enemy." (Act 1 Scene 5)
CONFLICT One of the central themes in 'Romeo and Juliet' is conflict. Shakespeare uses a variety of devices to display this conflict which is presented in many different ways through the play these include actions, words, and characters. In order to emphasise the conflict Shakespeare uses many opposites: love and hate, life/marriage and death, fate/destiny and free will, age and youth, male and female and light and dark.
Conflict is first introduced by Shakespeare in the prologue by mentioning the ancient feud between the two families. "From ancient grudge break to new mutiny" this is the first reference to any form of conflict within this play and it is made clear to the audience that this will be a major theme throughout the play.
LOVE
There are different types of love in Romeo and Juliet and different characters in the play have different ideas of love for example Sampson thinks of love as purely sexual. Shakespeare shows two sides to Romeo’s love one is blind love which he has for Rosaline and the other is true love which he has for Juliet.
Romeo and Juliet express their love in different ways. Romeo is quite expressive and uses many metaphors: “As a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear: Beauty too rich for use, for earth to dear!” On the other hand Juliet expresses her love for Romeo clearly
To maximise dramatic effect Shakespeare deliberately condenses the play into five days this is to ensure that the character of Romeo does not have time to think things through, thus causing him to be irrational.
At the start of the play Shakespeare deliberately makes Romeo absent. This is to heighten suspense within the audience and instead the play begins with two crude servants instead of the main character. Shakespeare heightens suspense within the audience because the audience wants to see the main character. Then Shakespeare introduces Romeo to the play and the audience discover that he is suffering from lovesickness. Shakespeare makes Romeo so self-indulgent that he does not even know that a riot has taken place in Verona. He hears about the riot from Benvolio. Benvolio also notices that some thing is disturbing Romeo. Benvolio then finds out that Romeo is in love with Rosaline, but she does not love him. To maximise dramatic effect Shakespeare never lets us meet or see Rosaline and the only real knowledge the audience has about her is from Romeo. This builds up anticipation and imagination within the audience because they speculate what Rosaline is like.
Shakespeare makes Romeo use oxymorons in his speech. Thy emphasis the confusion of his feelings of love for Rosaline by saying "O loving hate" and "cold fire". As Shakespeare is making him use such elaborate ways of speaking, his feelings seem 'artificial', and Romeo’s love does not seem true rather it seems that he is in love with the idea of being in love. His language emphasises to the audience that his feelings are not real. As he uses bizarre imagery and rhyming couplets, it is hard for the audience to take his feelings seriously.
To maximise dramatic effect Shakespeare makes Romeo use a metaphor in which he says that if he sees a women more beautiful than Rosaline his tears would turn into fire and burn his face because he would be lying. Shakespeare maximises dramatic effect because the audience are convinced that Romeo will not fall in love with anyone else due to what is stated in this metaphor.
Shakespeare also maximises dramatic effect because the audience speculates who Juliet is the lady mentioned in the title of the play.
Shakespeare creates drama when Romeo and Juliet see each other for the first time because they are so indulged in love that everyone else in the party ceases to exist for them and time seems to stop for the two lovers. Seeing Juliet for the first time has a dramatic change on Romeos language and character.
The audience is deeply shocked at Romeo because of his previous very believable metaphor that Rosaline is so beautiful and no other women can be more beautiful than her and after seeing Juliet he is calling her a crow.
Shakespeare makes Romeo’s mood change because for a long time in the play he has been moody and depressed due to the fact that Rosaline does not love him. For the first time in the play Shakespeare changes Romeo’s character to be happy and joyful.
Shakespeare creates even more drama and tension when Romeo realises the new love of his life is a Capulet. This causes suspense within the audience as they are imagining is Romeo going to give up and forget about Juliet as he did with Rosaline or is he going to be more sincere with Juliet. Romeo realises that Juliet being a Capulet is going to cause problems but instead he prefers to blame it on Fate.
Shakespeare maximises dramatic effect when Romeo goes to the Capulet grounds because it is evident that his life is in danger. Due to the fact that Shakespeare has made Romeo such an irrational character Romeo does not even give this a thought. This builds up suspense within the audience because the audience is worried for Romeos safety and well being. Even if the audience did not realise this Shakespeare reminds the audience by making Juliet say “If they do see thee they will murder thee” however Romeo does not seem to care.
Shakespeare also maximises dramatic effect when Romeo and Juliet get married because neither of their parents know about their marriage or even their love for one another. This also causes suspense within the audience because the audience are worried about what will happen if their parents find out about their liaison.
When Romeo is with his friends Mercutior and Benvolio they meet Tybalt who is angry with Romeo because he intruded on Capulet’s party. Tybalt picks a fight with Romeo and for the fist time Romeo is rational and mature and Romeo backs away and offers his hand to Tybalt as a sign of friendship. Instead Tybalt being the aggressive character he insults Romeo by calling him a coward and this deeply offends Mercutior. Mercutior draws his sword and fights Tybalt, Romeo intervenes and tries to stop them fighting Romeo’s intervention causes Mercutior to be obstructed and Tybalt stabs Mercutior who does.
At this point Tybalt does not know about the marriage, between Romeo and Juliet, and so cannot understand Romeo's reluctance to fight. This is dramatic irony, as the audience has seen the marriage, and can see Tybalt's confusion, as they know something that Tybalt has no knowledge of.
To maximise dramatic effect Shakespeare makes Romeo kill Tybalt this is done to show the audience the other side of Romeo not his friendly and loving self, but an aggressive and angry character.
Shakespeare causes suspense within the audience because they are thinking what is going to happen now Romeo has just killed Juliet’s first cousin. Will Juliet forgive him or break up with him.
Romeo is forced to leave Verona and flee to Mantua. At the start of the play Juliet was an obedient and courtesy daughter "Madam, I am here. What is your will?" but Romeos influence upon her makes her disobedient when she refuses to marry Paris and instead wants Romeo even though he has killed Tybalt. Juliet then confronts Friar Lawrence and tells him that she is going to commit suicide. Shakespeare puts the audience in suspense because the audience are worried that Juliet who is also one of the main characters is going to kill herself. Friar Lawrence then derives a plan for Romeo and Juliet to remain together. The plan consists of Juliet taking a poison which will give her death like symptoms for forty two hours. Friar Lawrence sends a letter to Romeo informing him of the plan but Romeo does not receive the letter instead Romeo is told by his friend that Juliet is dead. Romeo then travels back to Verona after purchasing some poison and goes to Juliet’s tomb where he meets Paris. Shakespeare then shows us Romeo’s irrational and immature self again when Romeo kills Paris. After seeing Juliet Romeo assumes that she is death and he consumes the poison he bought early. Shakespeare creates suspense within the audience because the audience wants Juliet to wake up before Romeo consumes the poison, but instead Juliet is a fraction late and Romeo has actually finished consuming the poison. Shakespeare maximises dramatic effect by putting the question ‘if only Juliet had waken early’ or if only Romeo had received that letter sent by the priest informing Romeo of the plan Romeo would have been alive. Juliet sees Romeo and knows that he has taken poison she immediately kisses his lips trying to kill her from some of the poison left on Romeo’s lips but she is unsuccessful and instead kills herself by stabbing herself.
As in the prologue that the death of the ‘star crossed’ lovers would end their families’ feud so it does.
Conclusion
Tragedy is a main factor in the story of Romeo and Juliet. Many problems occur during the play and it seems to the audience that the problems are easy to overcome. However the characters do not seem able to realise the simplicity of this. This leads the audience to think, 'if only…' This sort of situation is called dramatic irony.
Shakespeare has written an amazing and extravagant play in which he has given a fourteen year old boy Romeo the leading character in the play, which has been written by a great play writer. Shakespeare makes Romeo excelling in the elaborate word play that was popular in Elizabethian times.
Shakespeare maximises dramatic effect by making Romeo and Juliet pay with their lives due to the actions and views of people around them.
Romeo’s and Juliet’s death seems needless, as it was mainly the people around them who were fighting and not them. Romeo and Juliet largely kept out of the fighting apart from when Romeo killed Tybalt to avenge Mercutior death. Romeo’s and Juliet’s lives were mainly made miserable and unhappy by the people around them who interfered in their lives.
The idea that existed in Elizabethian times with regards to love and marriage was that members of rival families did not fall in love or marry each other. Shakespeare challenges this belief in the play Romeo and Juliet. I believe he does this to maximises dramatic effect to its highest potential which he has successfully accomplished in this brilliant play
