I believe that this play is more about hate and conflict opposed to the love that is renowned for to justify my point of view I am going to focus on two pivotal parts of the play act 3 scene 1 and act 3 scene 5.

Act 3 scene 1 is a pivotal scene in the play. It contains the deaths of 2 very memorable characters in the whole play; the scene starts of with Benvolio and Mercutio talking to each other. Benvolio says ‘the caples are abroad and if we meet here we will not escape a brawl’. This would make the audience think that an encounter here would be inevitable, and increases the tension in the scene, it also means that conflict is always an issue throughout the play and the audience are always wary of violence and conflict the scene shifts its tempo on arrival of Tybalt and Romeo the heated conversation between these two main characters is an example of dramatic irony, no one on stage, excluding Romeo knows that Romeo and Juliet have married, but the audience does know that this is why he is saying to Tybalt ‘And so good Capulet y as my own, be satisfied’. Tybalt will not understand why Romeo says this. a lot of people would trace a lot of this tragedy that occurs later on in the play to this scene  this is because when mercutio is stabbed by Tybalt mercutio cry’s out ‘A plague o’ both your houses’ this seems to be some sort of curse to both Capulet and Montague houses. In this scene Romeo tries to prevent any conflict between him and Tybalt by saying that he does not share the hatred for the Capulet as the rest of his own family does, the end result of this is mercutio dying at the blade of Tybalt  and Tybalt being killed by Romeo, this is a huge twist in the play because minuets ago in the play Romeo was trying to prevent conflict between the two families and now he is killing Tybalt, this tells us the love that Romeo has for Juliet is not enough to stop the conflict and violence to happen, in fact the anger Romeo holds overpowers the love that he has for Juliet and this causes him to kill Tybalt, I think this is another reason why Romeo and Juliet is more about violence and conflict than what it is typically stereotyped for as being a love story. This scene shows us that Romeo is capable of all sorts of emotions such as the intense anger which was enough to take another mans life and also able to love Juliet so deeply.

Romeo was banished from Verona by the prince and said if he ever returned he would face death. Four scenes after this in act 3 scene 5 we see that Romeo has made his way into Juliet’s bedroom this produces high tension because if he was caught he would have to face Juliet’s father sir Capulet and would also get put to the death penalty he was subjected to after killing Tybalt, the tension does fluctuate in this scene but usually remains moderately high throughout. This next scene is about the conflict in the one family this is between Juliet and her father her father wishes for her to marry parries as soon as possible, with the assumption that this will cheer her up but Juliet says ‘it shall be Romeo whom you know I hate, rather than Paris’ again this is another example of dramatic irony because lady Capulet does not know that Juliet is married to Romeo and thinks she actually does hate him for killing Tybalt. In this scene sir Capulet is angered by his daughter’s disobedience and begins to insult her with words such as ‘baggage’ and ‘tallow face’ nowerdays the audience would be shocked at such behaviour, forcing his daughter into an arranged marriage that she does not want to be in and then insulting her when she refuses to go along with what her dad has proposed social views at this time where that a father had complete control over his daughter and she would do what she was to do by him so maybe at this time people would not frown upon the behaviour of sir Capulet and actually think it was completely normal this scene has some powerful moments such as after Capulet has finished man handling his daughter, his wife and the maid they all turn there back on Juliet and leave her even the maid after she was all for Romeo and Juliet’s marriage is now telling her to forget about Romeo and let the marriage commence on Thursday as planned, Juliet dismisses the maid and is left alone.

These two scenes show the two sides of Romeos deep emotions, the love that he shows in act 3 scene 5 and the violence he is capable of in act 3 scene 1. Act 3 scene 5 also shows the change in Juliet’s character, from a mere girl to with no understanding of what love can do to you to a strong woman that would disobey her fathers command to marry Paris all because of her attachment to Romeo. Although not growing physically or in age her personality vastly changes.

In conclusion I think Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy’s that explores both intense emotions such as hate and true love this is what makes Romeo and Juliet famous but should never be considered a love story after you see the production you will say the same.