The next section of the scene is when Romeo first sees Juliet. Immediately her beauty stuns him. He associates her with glowing light and says she shines like a ‘rich jewel’. He compares her to a ‘snowy dove amongst crows’, and says she is ‘blessed’. He also says that in comparison to her everything else in the great hall, even brightly lit by candles and torches, is dull. Her beauty outshines everything else in the room, including Rosaline. Shakespeare makes Romeo describe Juliet as an image of light, to accentuate the fact that to him she is perfect and pure. It tells the audience that this will be the woman he shall love for the rest of his life. There is also great irony in this part of the scene. Last night Romeo thought he was so in love with Rosaline, he even agreed to go to this party so that he could see her. Benvolio and his other friends tell him to go to the party to find another girl, but Romeo tells them that it would be impossible for him to love anyone else because he loves Rosaline so much. However, the first girl he sees at the party, Juliet, he falls deeply in love with. As Benvolio said he would, Romeo now forswears his love for Rosaline at once: ‘For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.’ Near the start of Act 1 Scene 2, Benvolio advised Romeo that, since one fire burns out another and one pain is made less by the anguish of another, he should therefore find a new love. This now happens, but we know that Romeo’s pain will be made greater, not less, by his love for Juliet. He talks in a soliloquy so the audience can understand his emotions as he talks directly to them rather than to anyone else. As soon as he spots Juliet, Romeo starts talking in rhyming couplets, this is to show the audience that he is now in love. ‘O she doth teach the torches to burn bright! / It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night,’ and ‘As a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear; / Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.’ The rhymes reflect the depth of love he has for her. He emphasises his love for Juliet by using hyperbole. This again is to show the audience his strong emotions, in this case love. There is also a sense of disbelief in this part of Scene 5, when Romeo asks a servant who Juliet is: ‘What lady’s that which doth enrich the hand of yonder knight?’ It is totally unbelievable that the servant doesn’t know Juliet’s the daughter of his master: ‘I know not, sir.’ However, Shakespeare needs the servant to not know because it is important that Romeo falls in love with her before he knows who she is. If the servant had told Romeo at that point that she was Juliet, the daughter of Lord Capulet, the main enemy of his family, he probably would not then have let himself fall in love with her. Shakespeare could not have just left this part out of the play because Romeo had to ask the servant who she was, so that the audience immediately hear him speak aloud that he is interested in her. In a dramatic sense it is important that Romeo does fall in love with her or else the play doesn’t work. Romeo also had to ask a servant because he knew that if he asked anyone else, they might recognise him. The part of the scene creates drama by mainly emphasising Romeo’s deep love for Juliet at first sight. Also the opposition of light and dark is used, and he says that Juliet has beauty that is ‘too rich for use’ and is ‘for earth too dear’, meaning that she is too fine for the uses of this world and too precious to be on earth. Shakespeare has meant for this to sound rather ominous to reinforce the sense of foreboding. In a dramatic sense this was aimed by Shakespeare to create a type of suspense and apprehension, because the audience can see how perfect Juliet is in Romeo’s eyes.
The forth section of Scene 5 is when Tybalt spots Romeo and tells this to lord Capulet. In contrast to Romeo’s gentle speech, Tybalt arives and shows his anger and spite against Romeo being there. Romeo managed to gatecrash the Capulet’s party because it is a masked ball so all the guests were wearing masks to conceal their identity. However, Tybalt recognises Romeo by his voice. He is furious that a Montague should intrude into their party and says he will fight Romeo for this insult. The fact that Tybalt calls Romeo a ‘Montague’ is very significant. In ‘Romeo and Juliet’, Shakespeare shows how calling someone a Montague creates hatred and prejudice. Tybalt is blinded by the malice at the very sound of a Montague’s voice when he overhears Romeo: ‘This, by his voice, should be a Montague…/ What dares the slave.’ However, Capulet tells him to calm down because Romeo is known to be virtuous and well behaved: ‘…Verona brags of him / To be a virtuous and well-governed youth.’ There is a dramatic significance in this because Capulet doesn’t want a fight in his party when his guests are enjoying themselves: ‘Show a fair presence and put off these frowns, / An ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.’ Shakespeare has also meant for Capulet not to be bothered because it is necessary that the tragedy happens later in the play when Romeo and Juliet are married. He also does not want his nephew to start a fight because it will give his family a bad name. Romeo is seen as a very polite boy in Verona and if Tybalt threatened to fight him, people would wonder why because Romeo is such a ‘well-behaved’ boy. Also, Capulet doesn’t want a bad name for his family because they are trying to make a good impression on Paris. Capulet wants him to marry into the Capulet family probably for money or status values. Capulet’s priority that night was trying to marry off his only daughter, not the feud between the Capulets and the Montagues. So when Tybalt persists in wanting to kill Romeo because he is a Montague, Capulet becomes furious at his disobedience: ‘Am I the master here, or you? Go to!’ He gradually loses his temper and gets very angry when Tybalt will not obey his wish to leave Romeo alone: ‘He shall be endured!’ Capulet also goes on to call Tybalt a Goodman, ‘What Goodman boy?’ This insults Tybalt because it means that he is not a gentleman, and it puts his status down. Tybalt pleads with his uncle, ‘Why uncle, ‘tis a shame.’ By this time Capulet has had enough with Tybalt opposing him, and says, ‘You are a saucy boy.’ Shakespeare presents the character of Capulet as one of which has authority, and power. Shakespeare creates drama out of this because the audience themselves may have been frightened by the power and bad tempered nature in which Capulet would have spoken. Capulet then turns back to his guests and Tybalt leaves with even more spite towards Romeo than he had already had. He talks to himself about the contrast between the politeness he must be because his uncle has told him to be, and the anger in which he so strongly feels inside: ‘Patience perforce with wilful choler meeting, / Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting.’ Tybalt now has a very bitter and poisonous anger towards Romeo because he has to hold all his emotions inside. However undoubtedly they will all spill out soon, which they do in Act 3 Scene 1. Tybalt leaves ominously, stating that soon he shall have his revenge: ‘I shall withdraw, but this intrusion shall, / Now seeming sweet, convert to bitterest gall.’ This section of the scene illustrates the contrast between love and hate. It ends with Tybalt full of anger and bitterness at Romeo and then the fifth section of the scene starts with Romeo and Juliet falling into deep love with other. The love of Romeo and Juliet is threatened by a society full of hate. Shakespeare creates drama in the scene by using this contrast with love and hate. The audience would have got a real atmosphere of spite and anger from Tybalt and then it is swiped away and they get an atmosphere of perfect, tranquil love.
The next section of the scene is when the lovers first meet. It is a short compressed piece of poetry where they speak in a sonnet. This illustrates their openness. Romeo is in the house of his enemy, Juliet is supposed to be meeting Paris, but in these 14 lines it seems to them that they are the only people in the great hall. They are completely in a world of their own. Romeo and Juliet’s speeches to each other are full of religious overtones, although the bulk of what they say concerns the human body. Although they talk of lips and hands kissing and touching, and actually kiss each other, they also talk about holy shrines, gentle sins, pilgrims, devotion, saints and prayers. Romeo describes Juliet as being perfect and that he is like a pilgrim coming to worship her. He compares her to a saint’s body. He also tells her that he doesn’t feel worthy enough to be worshipping her by saying, ‘If I offend you by taking your hand.’ Then he goes on to say that if he has offended her by touching her hand, then he is more than willing to kiss it better. All of this is very flattering to Juliet; Romeo puts himself down to elevate her. Their formal use of language is rather dignified and stresses the purity and sincerity of their love for each other. Juliet appears very clever with her words. She matches Romeo’s metaphors and leads him on, trying to get him to make the first move: ‘Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.’ Juliet succeeds because Romeo then kisses Juliet. Throughout the sonnet Juliet appears very confident. This is surprising, as around her father she seems very shy, yet with Romeo she is flirtatious: ‘Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, / Which mannerly devotion shows in this; / For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch, / And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.’ She flirts with him very assertively, playing with his words; she even manages to get him to kiss her again by saying, ‘You kiss by the book.’ Shakespeare creates drama from this fifth section of the scene, by putting this duet between Romeo and Juliet in sonnet form. Also, the use of religious words isolates the characters from the rest of the scene and its bustling activity, which creates quite a spectacle for the audience as there are two contrasting scenes happening at the same time. Mostly Shakespeare’s plays are written in a mixture of blank verse and prose. However, Romeo and Juliet use much more rhyme. Rhyming couplets are used frequently and in this scene a sonnet is used. The sonnet is a form of romantic love poem, which was popular in Elizabethan England. The effect of this is remarkable. Good drama would have been created for the audience from the effect of setting this dialogue of Romeo and Juliet’s meeting in this form of love poetry, because it would have been interesting to listen to and it would have shown the extent of the love they had for each other at first sight.
In the last section of the scene, Romeo and Juliet discover each other’s true identity. The nurse, who brings a message that Juliet’s mother wants her, interrupts their sonnet. Juliet leaves and Romeo is left talking to the nurse. He asks the nurse who her mother is. The nurse is shocked that Romeo does not know and tells him that ‘her mother is the lady of the house.’ Romeo is dismayed, in that one sonnet in which he had spoken to Juliet, he had fallen deeply in love and now he knows her true identity he feels that he is in his ‘foe’s debt.’ He feels that he is in his enemy’s power and that his life will never be the same again until his death does him part from Juliet. The nurse’s perspective of it is different, she thinks that he may only be after the money: ‘I tell you, he that can lay hold of her / Shall have the chinks.’ Benvolio then appears and tells Romeo it is time to go, Romeo leaves with the knowledge that he loves a Capulet. Capulet goes on to announce that it is late and that they should all go to bed, everyone exits the hall leaving Juliet talking to the nurse. Juliet wants to know Romeos name but tries to conceal her interest in Romeo by asking first who a few other men are close to him: ‘Come hither, Nurse. What is yond gentleman?’ Then she asks the nurse who Romeo is and tells the nurse that, ‘if he be married, her grave is like to be her wedding bed.’ In other words she says that if she cannot marry him, she will die, which is another ominous comment. There is great irony in this comment because on the day that she is supposed to get married to Paris, she dies. The nurse then informs her that he is ‘Romeo, and a Montague, / The only son of your great enemy.’ Juliet is distraught that she has found her love within the family she has been brought up to hate: ‘My only love spring from my only hate!’ Juliet claims that it is too late now she has already fallen in love with him and knowing now who he is will not change her feeling towards him: ‘Too early seen unknown, and known too late! / Prodigious birth of love it is to me.’ The love is now tied up in a feud; she loves a ‘loathed enemy.’ This underlines the folly of the feud – if the two families would just accept each other as they are rather than as enemies, then the feud would disappear. Sometimes it is difficult to decide if this play is more about the nature of hate than the nature of love, more concerned with death and darkness than with life and light. Shakespeare has created drama in this last part of the scene because of the dramatic change from poetic love to pain and dismay. The mood has changed dramatically at the end and finishes the first act with grief.
Throughout Act 1 Scene 5, Shakespeare aims for two main types of drama: suspense and the strength in the language in which the characters speak. He succeeds with this well. The audience are caught between the contrasts of love and hate through this scene. It creates tension and a good spectacle for them to watch. Romeo and Juliet highlights the tension between words and action, between language and life. I also conclude that the character’s language was written to suit the image of them to others and to make the play interesting and exciting throughout. The dramatic effect that Shakespeare has aimed for and obtained, is to capture the audience’s attention by creating many contrasts and oppositions, and using powerful language to form a feeling of suspense.
Word Count: 3634
Bibliography:
- Zepherelli film version.
- Luhrmann film version
- Letts Revision guide