Tybalt’s first appearance, “I hate hell, all Montagues and thee: Have at thee coward!” this demonstrates Tybalt’s burning hate for all Montagues (with him being a Capulet) and establishes him as one who enjoys a fight.
Benvolio’s first line occurs after a fights engages between the servants of both houses; “Part, fools!” as he intervenes behind the fight. When Tybalt tries to enrage Benvolio, instead of rising to his vindictive words he however senses and realises the potential dangers of engaging in a street brawl and attempts to persuade Tybalt not to fight; “I do but keep the peace”.
Tybalt and Benvolio are presented together and this accentuates their conflicting personalities. Benvolio being a peace maker and Tybalt is of an aggressive nature.
However both Tybalt and Benvolio end up fighting and several of both houses join in the fray, shortly the fight is broken up by an Officer and the heads of both houses enter the scene, an enraged Montague bellows; “Thou villain Capulet!”
Prince Escalus enters the scene, too late to do anything other than react to the recent events and is plainly angered by the families’ feud and doesn’t have the strength to make them solve their differences which is unfortunate as if both families had reconciled, the end result would not have been in the tragic death of Romeo and Juliet. The Prince condemns the families for having “Three civil brawls”.
Second Scene
A love-based scene from Act 2 Scene 6 which is the joining of marriage of the two is immediately followed by a scene of much hate.
Violence and conflict is shown especially in Act 3 Scene I when the most dramatic of the fight scenes takes place resulting in two deaths, one of each family. There is something familiar about the opening of this scene; it is a hot day and the men of both households are searching for trouble.
Tybalt is searching for Romeo to speak with him. Romeo enters the scene, not so long after becoming wed to his love. Tybalt accuses Romeo; “thou art a villain”. Romeo enrages Tybalt, but not purposely; “good Capulet, which name I tender as dearly as my own, be satisfied”. Tybalt mistakes Romeo’s words of amiability as words of mocking which adds to Tybalt’s great fury.
Romeo has married Juliet, which makes Tybalt a cousin to him, so he cannot fight him, but love him. To an audience these radically contrasted characters create huge tension and anticipation, as their conflicting ideas of both love and hate clash with terrific dramatic effect, also giving harrowing implications of Romeo and Juliet's fated tragedy. The irony of all this is that this is also the first time in the play that a character uses his 'compassion' to disagree, and in fact it appears to have greater effect since Romeo's loving words give Tybalt no 'moral' reason to fight.
After Romeo denies Tybalt of a fight, so brave Mercutio steps up in his place; “come, sir, your passado,” and they fight. Romeo not wanting either his family (Tybalt) or his loyal friend Mercutio to be slayed in this act of violence and hostility, tries to end the fight but in the confusion Mercutio thrusts his arm forward and Mercutio receives a fatal stab wound; “ay a scratch, a scratch” he insists.
"Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man," Mercutio dies in the arms of Romeo; “a plague of both your houses!” he curses. The death of Mercutio inevitably destroys the friar’s plan of reuniting the feuding families.
Then Romeo who is now justly and indubitably enraged is prepared to avenge Mercutio’s death when Tybalt returns to also prove to himself that the love he has to Juliet has not ‘softened’ him.
"Romeo, away, be gone! / The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain" Romeo has changed dramatically compared to his character earlier in the play, he's now enraged to fight Tybalt he has a violent state of mind in which leaves Tybalt dead. Violence has yet again taken another life and turned the mood of the play from happiness to sorrow, grief and a little taste of tragedy, but yet more is to come!
This scene is important because true feelings of the characters are revealed through the reality of the consequences of the killings. Once again after a scene of much violence again with a speech from the Prince, this scene is similar to the first violent scene. The Prince continues to warn, threaten and punish the two families, but still they carry on fighting, provoking and feeling hatred towards one another as a consequence of the prince not attempting to resolve the feud between the two houses.
A death in each household could not even clear the grudge, or help them to realise the truth Mercutio came to see about the whole situation. Romeo and Juliet's love for one another seems highly dangerous now that Romeo is banished, making it harder and more risky for them to meet up and be together. Extreme measures seem now an option for them to start taking in order for them to have a happy marriage and life together, as peace making did not work at all and now probably never will between the two households.
Third Scene
The third and final violent scene is on Act 3 Scene 5 where parental conflict is evident between that of Juliet and her father; Capulet. This is a scene lacking violence but certainly portrays a lot of use of conflict.
The beginning of the scene marks the final parting of the two young lovers. Romeo leaves Juliet in reminiscing on how he had first left her; from the balcony. This is the last moment the lovers spend in each other’s company alive, where Juliet foresees the destiny of her Romeo; “O God, I have an ill-divining soul! / Me thinks I see thee, now thou art so low, / As one dead in the bottom of a tomb.”
Lady Capulet then calls up to Juliet and enters her room aware of Juliet’s tears and mistakes Juliet’s tears for continued grief for her dear deceased cousin, Tybalt, who Romeo had slain “Evermore weeping for your cousin’s death?”
Juliet cleverly leads her mother into thinking she also wishes Romeo was dead, she states; “Indeed I shall never be satisfied with Romeo till I behold him –dead—“. This is clever of Juliet because she is doing plenty of punning and is fundamentally declaring her love for Romeo.
Lady Capulet tells Juliet of some joyful news which she thinks will please Juliet. Juliet is to be married to the noble Paris on Thursday. Instead of being happy and excited from this news, Juliet is so appalled that she states that when she does marry, “it shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate, / Rather than Paris.”
Lady Capulet is of course not going to deliver such a message to Capulet, however it was too late; Capulet then makes his appearance into the scene and sees his daughter crying still and like Lady Capulet assumes she is still grieving for Tybalt and he is suggests that she is crying too much over his death.
Already we know it would not be wise for any young person such as Juliet to agitate her father Capulet, as we saw from Act 1 Scene 4 at the ball where Tybalt got ‘chewed out’ by him.
Turning to Lady Capulet, Capulet demands, “Have you delivered to her our decree?” Capulet is then stunned and shocked at the answer to his question, he had expected her to be pleased and exceptionally grateful for the proposition of being married to a “gallant, young, and noble gentleman” as described by Lady Capulet.
Then we see the conflict arising between that of father and daughter; parental conflict. The intensity of Capulet’s fury increases as Juliet persists. He insults her calling her a “green-sickness carrion”, a “baggage”, a “tallow-face”, a “disobedient wretch and a “hilding.”
Capulet threatens to disown Juliet and throw her out of the house when she persists; he tells her to be at the church on Thursday “or never look me in the face” and continually tells Juliet to “hold her tongue” as he rants on to her in his state of wrath. Juliet is probably more afraid of being thrown out from her home than the prospect of marriage to Paris, where would she go if she were to be thrown out? There isn’t anywhere she could go, Capulet explains in a spiteful manner of how she would “beg, starve, die in the streets.”
“My fingers itch” exclaims Capulet to Juliet, this makes us assume is he is close to hitting her and therefore his temper is steadily rising. Lady Capulet realises there is too much conflict and heat coming from Capulet and tells him “You are too hot”
However Lady Capulet, instead of insulting Juliet, wishes she was dead! “I would the fool were married to her grave!” Juliet begs her for pity and to “delay this marriage for a month, a week”, but Lady Capulet dismisses and leaves her saying, “talk not to me, for I’ll not speak a word”
This huge amount of conflict created links the idea of development from childhood to adulthood with sexual experience. Certainly, Juliet feels so strong that she defies her father, but through this conflict she has realised the limit of her power. Although Juliet is emotionally strong as, she is still a woman in a male-dominated world. I think that Juliet should just have taken her father up on his offer to disown her and go to live with Romeo in Mantua, (but that would have made the play not a tragedy). That is not an option. Juliet, as a woman, cannot leave society; and her father has the right to make her do as he wishes.
Though defeated by her father, Juliet does not revert to being a little girl. She recognises the limits of her power and comes to realisation that for a woman in Verona who cannot control the direction of her life, suicide, the ability to choose life or death for yourself, can represent the only authority over herself and seems like the better option.
Conclusion
It is a play of violence because of the street brawl that was the opening of the play in Act 1 Scene 1 and the scene in which Tybalt slaughters Mercutio and Romeo in vengeance and anger kills Tybalt. In fact the fiery and aggressive Tybalt caused much of violence in the play and violence shown from him led to two deaths.
There is a further scene of violence and conflict which I did not cover; Act 5, Scene 3. This was the tragic death of Romeo and Juliet and undeniably the climax of the play of ‘Romeo and Juliet’, it is also my favourite scene from the play, as it displays two of the key themes of the play, both violence and tragedy.
In conclusion I believe that although Romeo and Juliet is a play filled with violence and conflict which is an important theme, there are other themes to it such as tragedy, death and a society at war. However the strongest theme of all from ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is the theme of love.
