To Romeo death is the final honour but to Mercutio death is nothing but a joke until it strikes.
To prepare us for the tragic events of the play we have entertainment and comedy from each of the characters. When Mercutio meets the nurse he insults her and this gives laughter and comedy to this scene. The nurse is looking for Romeo and he is not there so she talks with Benvolio and Mercutio and this leaves her open for Mercutio to have a laugh from the insults of the nurse, she calls out for a fan for the day is hot in Verona and Mercutio says
‘Good Peter, to hide her face, for her fan’s the fairer face’
This is saying the fan is prettier than the nurse’s face. This leaves the nurse vulnerable to the point were she cannot give a come back and so tries to ignore Mercutio, which only fuels his excited mood. When she questions the time he cannot resist the vulgar reference to the male sex organ for he is hot and bored
‘The bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon’
Prick in this is known as penis and shocks the nurse
‘Out upon you, what a man are you’
This shows that the nurse is asking Mercutio what kind of man he is if he gets off on insulting older women with sexual jokes and insults. He also calls her an old prostitute and sings
‘But a hare that is hoar, is too much for a score’
This provides comedy because there isn’t a sentence that is more insulting towards the nurse. In act 3 scene 1 the action kicks of with comedy as shown and the two first deaths originated from insults and a fight. Mercutio is the only person who jokes even when hurt and acts as if he isn’t
‘Tis but a scratch Romeo’
Then he cries out repeatedly
‘A curse upon both your houses’
And this should hint you to assuming that now something else is going to happen. Mercutio is joking around and talking so much after being wounded that it seems death is not a fear to him and this is shown through his jokes.
While Mercutio is very funny and entertaining to watch he also seems to be troubled by an evil deep down and this is shown when he talks about Queen Mab the tiny fairy who at first is seen as harmless from Mercutio’s description but when his description turns bloody and evil his friends and the audience are shocked
‘Sometime she driveth o’er a soldiers neck, and then dreams he of cutting foreign throats’
Just one hour after Romeo secretly marries Juliet he arrives on the scene and all the events leading to his banishment have already been sparked off. His friend Mercutio and his new cousin Tybalt are killed. All the promises of his marriage to Juliet are destroyed. Mercutio’s contribution to his bloodshed and misery is huge. The heat puts Mercutio in an argumentative mood, and so he needs just a spark to ignite his fuse. We know that he encourages Benvolio to do this by goading him repeatedly
‘Thou art one of these fellows that, when he enters the confines of a tavern, claps me his sword upon the table, and says…and by the operation of the second cup draws him on the drawer, when indeed there is no need’
This is to get Benvolio in the mood for a fight. Mercutio’s behaviour is annoying for his friends. He is being totally unreasonable to Benvolio. Just like a bully he picks on the quietist person and gives pathetic reasons to start a fight
‘Why, thou wit quarrel with a man that hath a hair more or a hair less in his beard than thou hast’
This shows us that Mercutio is desperate to insult Benvolio to start a fight, which shows the audience that there is going to be trouble even before Tybalt arrives. When he does arrive Mercutio provokes Tybalt but Tybalt is weary to this and avoids encouraging Mercutio by telling him that he has no Quarrel with him. After Tybalt says thou consort, Mercutio insults Tybalt’s wording and draws his sword and starts to lash out at Tybalt’s feet causing him to dance away and look ridiculous which sparks the fight and the upsetting consequences of the deaths and arguments later on in the play.
Romeo speaks prophetically after Mercutio dies through these words
‘This days black fate on moe days doth depend, this but begins the woe others must end’
This describes that Romeo senses that now Mercutio is dead more blood will be shed. This leads to a chain of events that conclude the story by more tragedy’s and cause more havoc and arguments between the Montague’s and the Capulet’s. Mercutio is seen as the main contributor to these deaths because he triggers the anger in Romeo before he chases and kills Tybalt. This is done through the provocative mood of Mercutio. In this play Mercutio initiates the violence. To give the audience a faint idea that something could happen, Benvolio remarks
‘These hot days, is the mad blood stirring’
Benvolio senses before anyone that something is going to happen and urges Mercutio to leave and return home until Romeo returns but it is not to be so. Tybalt is able to control his anger unlike Mercutio, and this is the cause of the fight between them for Mercutio persists until Tybalt cannot control his anger no more and this to Mercutio is a game and that is why he tries so hard to get Tybalt fighting. The final comment and insult made by Mercutio to Tybalt to spark the fight is
‘Good king of cats…nothing but one of your nine lives’
Like anyone would Romeo was overcome with rage when Mercutio died and was compelled to chase Tybalt to get back and avenge Mercutio’s death. However his mood changes suddenly after Tybalt falls and he shouts
‘O, I am fortunes fool’
This basically means that Romeo was foolish and attacked without thinking through first. Fate was definitely on Romeo’s side. Mercutio’s death eventually triggers five more deaths them being: Tybalt, Paris, Romeo, Juliet, Romeo’s mother. The final words of the play sum up the entire play in a simple sentence that includes the two names in the title
‘Never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo’
This means that there has never been a sadder story than the one of Juliet and her beloved Romeo.