romeo and juliet

In Act 1 Scene 1 the language used makes the atmosphere very tense. In this act Shakespeare uses the words “do you bite your thumb at us sir” He uses this because in the Elizabethan times it is a really disgraceful thing to do and this is the fight starter which wakes up the audience and also emphasises the hatred between the Montague’s and the Capulets. Tybalt talks a lot about ‘DEATH’ and ‘HELL’ this really shows what his character and personality is about. In Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare uses a lot of word play such as using oxymoron’s in a sentence for example in act 1 scene 1 Romeo says “its much to do with hate but more to do with love” these are two completely opposite words which emphasises the sentence and makes it a lot more affective. Shakespeare also puts words next to each other which make them more powerful like in act 1 scene 1 Shakespeare uses oxymoron’s like “cold fire” and “bright smoke” Putting words like these together is really effective because it puts a really exiting picture in your head because it really makes you think like how can a fire be cold and how can smoke be bright so it keeps the audience interested.  

In the opening of act 3 scene 1it is said that “ the day is hot and mad blood is starring” this is pathetic fallacy this is so that you know that the tension is already built up, because the prince has explained that anyone caught in a brawl will face death this means that the consequences will be much more serious than last time there was a fight. When benvolio tells us that the fight is inevitable it raises the tension because we already no what’s going to happen if there’s another fight the atmosphere now is charged and exited. Mercutio tells us how easily benvolio gets into fights and tells us about the five fights he has recently had. We know that benvolio tries to start fights because in the play he says things to mercutio such as: “Thou will quarrel with a man who hath a hair more or less on his beard”, “I were so apt to quarrel as thou art” so he’s just using any excuse to start a fight. When Tybalt And his men arrive looking for a fight there is a lot of dramatic tension, in the play when benvolio enters the scene the atmosphere dramatically changes which is really useful because when the tension is high Shakespeare can just make Tybalt enter and the tension just goes through the roof  especially when Mercutio starts to provoke Tybalt, and because of Tybalts personality, he will just lash out, but because mercutio is just verbally abusive and Tybalt then offers Romeo a challenge in other words he wants a fight but Romeo refuses to fight because now that Romeos married to Juliet, Tybalt is a part of Romeos family which is ironic in a way that a part of his own family wants to kill him, Tybalt is disgusted by Romeo refusing to fight ,of course he doesn’t know why he wont fight. This is dramatic irony he thinks Romeo is being unmanly. Then mercutio starts to provoke him even more but now hes fired up and fight’s Tybalt Romeo tries to split the fight up and ends up getting his best friend killed, the atmosphere has changed now because it is Romeo who is fired up and Tybalt and his men flee Romeo chases them and kills Tybalt this is when the tension Is really high because now two people have died. The police arrive and question benvolio Romeo gets all the blame because he’s the only one alive who was fighting so Romeo is pronounced banished by the prince this makes Romeo upset and angry because his new wife is in the city he’s been banished from the mood in the play changes to sadness and regret and then romeo ignores his banishment and goes to see Juliet but he thinks Juliet is dead from some poison so he drinks the poisen and kills himself which explains the quote in the prologue “star crossed lovers take there life”