To What Extent does Act1 Scene 5 Prepare the Audience for what is to come?

Aaron Horn, GCSE English Coursework, 2002.

To What Extent does Act1 Scene 5 Prepare the Audience for what is to come?

I am going to write about why Act1 Scene5 prepares the audience for what is going to happen in William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”. They play is based on two characters from two rival families, the Capulets and the Montagues who fall in love at a party in 1.5. Tension between the two families is obvious because of the fight in 1.1 between Tybalt Capulet and Benvolio Montague and their group.

1.5 is set at the great hall in the Capulet’s mansion, Romeo and his friends have dressed up and went uninvited to a party. The first and most important thing to note is the huge rivalry between the two houses. Tybalt finds out that Romeo and his friends have come uninvited and so he sends his servant to get his weapon. He is stopped by his uncle from starting yet another fight with his nemesis. This tension prepares the audience for the fight which takes place in Act3 Scene1. In the fight Mercutio, a friend of the Capulets is killed. Romeo is angry and fights with Tybalt, Tybalt falls. The whole play is based around the fight; there is no way now that Romeo can ever live with Juliet. Juliet’s mother wants him dead “For blood of ours, shed blood of Montague”.

In Act1 Scene5, Romeo meets Juliet for the first time. He sees her and instantly wants to know more about her. He asks the question “Did my heart love till now?” he believes he has never been in love as much as this moment. This forms a strong bond between him and her for the rest of the play, so much so that he will die for her. This till-the-death bond gets the audience ready for the ending that we know. When they first meet Romeo tells her that his lips are like two pilgrims wanting to kiss her. ...

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Romeo realises that she is a Capulet and says “O dear account! My life is my foe’s debt”, he means that by terrible reckoning he is at his enemy’s mercy. The audience know that after the fight in Act1 Scene1 the two families hate each other and that it would be never possible for the two to love each other in public. Juliet’s nurse tells her that he is a Montague, “That I must love a loathèd enemy” says Juliet.

So as we can see, Romeo and Juliet have falling in love and yet they both cannot see a future because the two families have hated each other for decades. Juliet says “My only love sprung from my only hate!” she is young and in the play is only 13 years old. Her father wants her to marry a rich mans son in order to strengthen business bonds. We can tell that she is not interested in this and simply wants Romeo.

Capulet’s reaction to Romeo is that he is a dignified, well known person. He does not want any trouble because it will make his family looks bad. This helps to tell us that in the future of the play that Capulet does not want riots and problems caused because the prince said if they had one more fight then they would risk exile.

Finally the role of the nurse is important; she goes between Romeo and Juliet in this scene and later in the play. She is dedicated to Juliet, not a particular family so she does not tell the older Capulets about the affair, even when they marry later in the play.

So in conclusion we can see that Act1 Scene5 sets the pace for the rest of the play. It deals with Romeo and Juliet’s love, the fight and Tybalt’s death in Act3 Scene1, the hate between the two families and the role of the nurse.

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