The pace of the play is very fast as after any fight happens straight afterwards they talk about things happening between them next. Proleptic irony is used as Benvolio predicts the Capulet’s coming to cause violence and then with them coming and killing, as he quotes “we should have/none shortly, for one could kill the other”.
Act 1 Scene 5 is an important scene as the two main characters meet. Romeo enters and feels true love at first sight with Juliet completely jettisoning his relationship with Rosaline, which he kept talking to Mercutio about.
Furthermore, with Old Capulet allowing Romeo by saying to Tybalt that he is a “virtuous and well-govern’d youth” this allowed Romeo to spend time with Juliet and get to know her and start to blossom their relationship. Tybalt shows no jealousy to Romeo about being with Juliet. He’s just showing passionate hate towards the Montagues but more annoyed that Romeo is accepted by Old Capulet.
This scene is dramatic as certain things can be made happen as it’s packed with people and each of the characters can’t be aware of each other. There are many points of dramatic irony for the audience.
Drama certainly starts when Tybalt spots Romeo at his party, this immediately makes him angry as one of his enemies are gatecrashing his own party. The scenario of the Montagues coming to overthrow the Capulet’s party and then with Romeo absconding that thought and going off with Juliet who he only just met for a more intimate scene creates a lot of drama.
Act 1 Scene 5 has tension in it as the characters use proleptic irony where they sub-consciously say what’s going to happen. The audience will know drama will happen as the two families are together with the possibilities of love, death and hate occurring. With these possibilities the audience will expect high emotions happening as the families are going to notice each other at some point during the party.
In Act 1 Scene 5 the pace is very fast as only just after Romeo sees her he goes up to her and says his feelings of devotions to her in a sonnet. Then in a matter of minutes they’re in love and lead to intimate scenes in private locations.
As Romeo and Juliet speak to each other in their sonnets when they first meet each other they contain loving and devoted imagery in their language and talk about how great each other is, Romeo says “beauty too rich for use, for Earth to dear” and “sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again”. They each spoke sonnets as it was a popular and noble form of poetry in Shakespeare’s time and it’s associated with men to seduce or show their devotion to the woman they love.
Act 3 Scene 1 is important as it contains deaths, which are very significant as they are that of Romeo’s best friend, Mercutio, and it makes him angry and turn from a lover to revenge seeker. With him turning for revenge and Act 3 Scene 1 being very masculine his language is very different and turns very violent.
Act 3 Scene 1 is important as it creates even more tension between the two families. The scene is very dramatic, as it’s a very male scene with a lot of tension in the air as they have met in public, also it has even more tension in it as it is in complete contrast to the scene before. The drama is increased at the beginning as it is in complete contrast to the scene before.
For the audience Act 3 Scene 1 is very dramatic because they know the Montague’s and the Capulet’s will be severely punished for fighting in public in Verona. Also a fight is merely guaranteed when the scene opens with talk of ‘heat’ and ‘madness’ with the threat of a fight increasing.
The language in this scene isn’t loving as it rather has dark imagery in it. The scene doesn’t have much poetry, more prose, this is because for once they don’t have time to think about speaking lengthy speeches and are more wound up about the fight. In this scene lots of animal imagery is used which makes the men fighting seem cruel, ruthless and makes their actions seem barbaric.
But Mercutio thinks carefully about what he says as in the language that he uses he tries to pick a fight using dark imagery. The imagery he uses includes death and bloodiness about the Montagues being victims of hate. Mercutio also utters omens and curses such as “a plague o’both your houses” to threaten the Capulet’s even more.
Benvolio shows he promotes and agrees to a fight by talking of heat and madness to create an uncomfortable atmosphere.
I personally preferred Act 3 Scene 1 literally because it has more drama and action. The Act 1 Scene 5 was where Romeo and Juliet met each other, which was quite tedious and boring.
To make Act 3 Scene 1 more appealing to a modern audience I would have each side using gadgets and using up-to-date technology to track down the two rival families. They could also have the flash, customized cars and hi-tech weaponry but along with this have the storyline the same just as in the Romeo and Juliet film with Leonardo di Caprio.
