Shakespeare starts Romeo and Juliet with a fight. I believe in doing this he caught the audience by surprise, getting their attention and keeping them interested and in suspense as to what may happen next. The fight in this first scene happens due to an argument between Abraham and Balthasar from the Montague family and Gregory and Sampson of the Capulet family were Abraham bit his thumb at the Capulet as this was seen as a great offence at the time it caused an argument, during this argument the Capulet’s thought the Monique’s were being cheeky therefore they started fighting one of the many reasons why this fight happened one of them is due to the fact that the two families are bad enemies, because of an ongoing feud between the two families.
The audience’s response to this fight is shock and they become exited and very interested in the play because they want to know more about the fight. This scene moves the story on very well as it links to the prince’s declaration as in the Princes declaration he tells the two families if they fight ever again in the city they will be banished from Verona.
Between the two scenes we studied a lot of important things took place such as Romeo and Juliet meeting at a party which the Montique family gate crashed and Romeo and Juliet agreeing to get married the nurse helps to arrange their marriage furthermore Romeo and Juliet marry.
In Act 3 Scene 1 Tybalt is looking for Romeo, as he wants to fight him for going to the Capulet party, which he wasn’t supposed to be at. Whilst Tybalt is looking for Romeo he see’s Mercutio and they start arguing whilst Tybalt and Mercutio are arguing Romeo comes into the scene. Then the audience expect a fight when Tybalt calls Romeo a “villain” Everyone on stage is surprised by the way Romeo responds to Tybalt as he says, “I have to love thee”. The actors and actresses are amazed by Romeos reaction but the audience know why he has reason to love Tybalt.This is a good example of dramatic irony, were the audience know something which the rest of the actors don’t. The dramatic irony here is the audience knowing that Romeo is married to Juliet therefore this makes Romeo cousin to Tybalt, however no-one else in this scene knows this.
The audience’s response in this scene is anticipation, as they want to shout out and tell the actors on stage that Romeo is married to Juliet, this also causes tension between the audience and actors. This dramatic irony also helps to keep the audience’s attention on the play, as this is the second fight which Romeo has had therefore Romeo becomes banished from the city of Verona due to the Princes declaration in Act 1 Scene 1, it’s due to this that things start going wrong for Romeo and Juliet. When Tybalt challenges Romeo by saying “Romeo, the love I bear thee can afford no better than this: thou art a villain” Romeo responds to Tybalts challenge by saying “Tybalt the reason I have to love thee” after Romeo has said this they want to shout out to tell the actors that Romeo is married to Juliet. This scenes impact on the rest of the play is it sets the scene for Romeo and Juliet’s death at the end of the play.
In conclusion we can see that Shakespeare uses a large variety of dramatic devices such as starting Romeo and Juliet with a fight, contrasting love with hate and using dramatic irony, to get the audiences attention and keep it through out the play. In addition the more important scenes of the play are not the most romantic but those with high levels of violence.
