The scene I am going to analyse is act 1 scene 5 and these are the main characters in this scene-Romeo, Juliet, Tybalt, Capulet, Mercutio, Benvolio, Nurse and Cousin Capulet. The scene starts with the servants preparing for the party. “Where’s Potpan that he helps not to take away? He shift a trencher, he scrape a trencher?” Before Romeo and his friends went to the ball, Romeo had a dream. “I fear, too early, for my mind misgives some consequence yet hanging in the stars shall bitterly begin his fearful date, with this night’s revels, and expire the term of a despised life clos’d in my breast, by some vile forfeit of steerage of my course, direct my sail: on lusty gentleman.” In this quote Romeo says he has a dream which indicates to him that something bad is going to happen. Fate has decided what will happen and he is afraid of what it might be. He also adds that this night will trigger what is to come and a death will take place which will be unexpected.
Lord Capulet is the host and the speech made by him at the start of the play is very important as it sets the mood for the rest of the party and also the rest of the scene. He starts by welcoming the guests and jokes with them saying that if the ladies did not dance they had an affliction of corns on their feet. This tells us that Capulet is trying to put across an image that he is quite jolly and light hearted. “Welcome, gentleman! Ladies that have their toes unplagued with corns will walk a bout with you. Ah, my mistresses, which of you all will now deny to dance? She that makes dainty, she I’ll swear hath corns: am I come near ye now? Welcome gentlemen, I have seen the day that I have worn a visor, and could tell a whispering tale in a fair lady’s ear: such as would please: ‘tis gone, ‘tis gone, ‘tis gone, you are welcome, gentlemen come, musicians play. “
Romeo arrives at the ball and he notices Juliet. “So shows a snowy dove trooping with corns, as younder lady o’er her fellows show.” Romeo says that Juliet is more beautiful than the other girls-like a dove among a load of crows. “Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.” This quote suggests that Romeo is in love and he is questioning himself. Tybalt detects Romeo and wants to fight him but Lord Capulet stops him because he doesn’t want his party to be ruined. “Content thee gentle coz, let him alone.” Tybalt was furious because Lord Capulet stopped him. “It fits when such a villain is a guest”. Romeo and Juliet kiss and falls in love, but they don’t know that they are enemies until the nurse tell them. “My only love sprung from my only hate. Too early seen unknown, and known too late.” Juliet was heart broken and she says the only person I love was brought into the world by the only people I hate. I know who he is now but it’s too late. “O dear account! My life is my foe’s debt.” Romeo says my life is in my enemy’s power. The nurse is a messenger-she informs the couple and later on in the play she takes the message to Romeo telling him Juliet still loves him although he has killed Tybalt.
In the Elizabethan England, arranged marriages were very common. Even though there was unmarried woman on the throne in Elizabethan England, the roles of women in society were very limited. The Elizabethan had very clear expectations of men and women, and in general men were expected to be the breadwinners and women was regarded as “the weaker sex,” not just in terms of physical strength, but emotionally too. Elizabethan society was patriarchal, meaning that men were considered to be the leaders and women their inferiors. So that is why Lord Capulet arranged Juliet’s marriage without asking her and when she refused to marry Paris, Tybalt shouts at her, “hang the, young baggage, disobedient wretch!”
The event that happens in this scene affects the rest of the play. Romeo and Juliet meet for the first and they fall in love, but they didn’t know that they are enemies. If Romeo and Juliet never met then they would have never died. Romeo and Juliet kept their marriage a secret because their parents are enemies and even if they told their parents, they would have never accepted the marriage. Tybalt notices Romeo at the Capulet’s party. “This by his voice should be a Montague. Fetch me my rapier, boy.” His anger at Romeo gate crashing the party and Capulet not allowing him to fight leads to the deaths of Mercutio and his own death. In act 3 scene 1, Tybalt wants to fight Romeo but Romeo is reluctant to fight Tybalt because he doesn’t want their families to hate each other even more. When Romeo doesn’t fight Tybalt, Mercutio goes and fights him and he gets killed. Romeo is seen to be upset at Mercutio’s death and predicts that the “days black Fate on more days doth depend.” Romeo becomes more upset that Tybalt is triumphant with Mercutio being death. As Romeo becomes overwhelmed with Mercutio’s death and Tybalt’s joy over it, he suddenly declares that either he or Tybalt must die with Mercutio. Romeo kills Tybalt. If Romeo didn’t gate crashed the party then Tybalt wouldn’t have seen him, then Mercutio and Tybalt would have never died.
In modern times, and in the Elizabethan era, fate plays an important
role in people's lives. Many people believe it to be written in stone, and
unchangeable. Many others believe it to be controlled by a person's own
actions. In Romeo and Juliet, fate is one of the main themes, described as
having power over many of the events in the play. Fate is often called upon,
wondered about, and blamed for mishaps. However, where fate is blamed in the play as the ultimate cause for a mishap, there is always an underlying action, or combination of them, on the part of human beings that decides the
consequences. Human weakness, the loss of self-control, is always the direct
cause of a bad choice or mishap, and not fate itself. One of the most noted instances where fate is blamed for a mishap is when Romeo cries out the he supposedly is fortune's fool. He claims that fate has brought on Mercutio's death, and has leaded him to kill Tybalt in revenge.
Despite and obvious obstacles of conflict and hate, the love of Romeo and Juliet is born and subsists. When Romeo meets Juliet for the first time during the Capulet’s feast in act 1 scene 5, the language and form of the dialogue shared by Romeo and Juliet shows that their private sphere is totally different from public life.
Shakespeare presents Romeo and Juliet’s first conversation by a sonnet, a poetic convention very popular in the Elizabeth age. “If I profane with my unworthiest hand, this holy shrine, the gentle sin is this, my lips two blushing pilgrims ready stand, to smooth the rough touch with a gentle kiss. 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. Have not saints lips and holy palmers too? Ay pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer. O then dear saint, let lips do what hands do, they pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair. Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake. Then move not while my prayer’s effect I take.” Romeo refers to Juliet as a saint and Juliet refers to Romeo as shrine. Romeo sees himself as a pilgrim worshipping her. A sonnet’s expression of the lyrical “T” allows Shakespeare to break the limit of dramatic performance and to involve his audience emotionally as if they were recipients to a poem. This therefore means that by making the audience of the two different breaks down, and the other, where Romeo and Juliet is the centre of the universe.
I think act 1 scene 5 is a very important scene because it is where Romeo and Juliet meet for the first time and fall in love. The themes that can be found in this scene are: love, marriage, conflict and hate. Love in this scene refers to Romeo meeting Juliet and them instantly falling in love. Marriage in this scene refers to when Paris wants to marry Juliet. Conflict in this scene refers to when Tybalt wants to get Romeo taken out of the Capulet party. Hate in this scene is seen in Capulet’s party being gate crashed by Romeo Montague and that the families are foes. “From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, a pair of star crossed lovers take their life.” Romeo and Juliet's death was a result of many misfortunes, but they were mostly victims of the society in which they live, malignant fate, and there own passions.
