In contrast, to Romeo, a character who embodies youth and love is his lover’s cousin, Tybalt. Tybalt is a strong character who embodies death, doom and disaster. Tybalt is extremely aggressive; he portrays this aggression and anger in Act 3 scene 1, when Tybalt and Mercutio fight. ‘I am hurt,’ says Mercutio. Tybalt has killed Mercutio with his anger. His words are very negative and harsh, such as the words hate and death. ‘Look upon thy death.’ Throughout the play he is portrayed as an evil character. The audience can see this anger and aggression that Tybalt holds inside him when he murders Mercutio. His character’s actions begin a chain of greater events that occur later in the play. For instance, because he kills Mercuito, because of hatred Romeo murders Tybalt. Now that Romeo has killed Juliet’s cousin the audience know that her family will never accept their love and will hate Romeo and Juliet’s relationship for ever.
The order that Shakespeare introduced the characters was very effective and made an impact on how good the performance was. The minor characters were introduced first. Whilst the audience listened to the less important characters talk about Romeo and Juliet the audience became very impatient and curious about meeting them. This order made the performance more successful, as the audience became very intrigued and interested.
The two main moods of the play are love and hate, and throughout the play the contrasts of moods change frequently. An example of this mood change is in the first scene of act 1. The scene begins in a conversation between two Montague’s, and then it continues into a huge riot between the two families. The very next part of the scene shows Romeo describing his love for Rosaline. This frequent change really stresses dramatic conflict of tragedy and draws the audience to attention. This device is used as in the first scene of the play, when the audience see a fight started by Tybalt and Mercutio; this fight portrays a sense of tragedy as it foreshadows a more serious fight, later in the play. These mood changes occur throughout the whole play, and give the play a sense of tragedy and foreboding.
Mercutio is not a major character in the play; however he does stand a good purpose and makes impacts and changes throughout the play. For instance Mercutio stirs moods up with his language and the things he says to certain characters, he especially affects the mood of Tybalt, by taunting him into a fight. Mercutio’s character influences other characters to make actions that really affect the play, for instance he provoked Tybalt to killing him with his unkind language.
The main device that Shakespeare uses throughout the whole of the play is the time scale, to create an impending sense of foreboding and tragedy. The play Romeo and Juliet is set over only a few days. Right from the beginning of the play the audience see a sense of rushing, as Romeo falls in love with another woman strait after he has been moaning that he will never love again, ‘One fairer than my love?’ This sense of rushing automatically portrays a sense that something bad will happen later in the play. There are many events in the play that show this impending sense of doom and tragedy. It puts the audience in a horrible position, as the audience are aware that what is happening on stage is wrong and is happening too fast. For example, when Romeo and Juliet first met, the audience knew that their families were enemies, but at the time the couple were not aware of this. This device is called dramatic irony, which is when the audience of the play know something that the characters on stage do not know yet. It is very effective as it adds to the tension in the audience. This strong sense of rushing is noticed by some of the characters, such as Friar Lawrence. Friar Lawrence warns Romeo and Juliet that they are moving into decisions too fast, ‘Wisely and slow. They stumble that run too fast.’ This warning was ignored which adds to the sense of tragedy and foreboding.
One of the main characters in the play is Romeo’s secret lover, Juliet. Juliet plays a very important role. The audience see a huge change in Juliet’s character during the play, and this chance portrays her character from an obedient child to a dishonest woman, who is going behind her families wishes to marry their enemy. At the beginning of Act 1 Juliet is introduced as an obedient young girl, ‘It is an honour that I dream not of.’ The audience can see that she is obeying her father’s wishes and making him a proud father, by agreeing to meet Paris at the party.
However in contrast to this personality, she meets Romeo, the enemy of her house, instead and lets herself fall for him. Dramatic irony is used at this part of the play; the audience have sympathy for Juliet, as she does not know that he is a Montigue. Even though later on when she does become aware of this information, she carries on disobeying her family. Now the audience are feeling tense, as this is the start of a doomed relationship. Further in the play Romeo and Juliet decide to become united by getting married. Yet again, the audience have this continuous sense of tragedy and foreboding. An Elizabethan and Modern audience would share the feeling that getting married at Juliet’s extremely young age of 13 is a dangerous risk to take; they would feel that it is much too young and will end in disaster. Juliet is introduced as a sensible person for a young girl. This mature side of her is highlighted in her soliloquy, just after Act 1 when she has met Romeo. ‘T is but thy name that is my enemy.’ In this soliloquy she is aware of the problems and the conflict that she would cause by falling in love with Romeo, an enemy of her family, and she is clever enough to identify the problem of the youth of Romeo and herself.
Nevertheless, not long later in the play she contradicts herself by falling in love with Romeo and agreeing to marry him. The fact that she agrees to marry Romeo within only a few days of knowing him, adds a tremendous amount of tension to an audience. The audience have this strong sense of the characters rushing, which would lead to tragedy, doom and death.
Shakespeare creates a huge amount of tension in the play by the style in which he writes the ends of most scenes. Shakespeare tends to add rhyming couplets and cliff hangers which creates irony and gives them affect. ‘Before and apace.’ Moreover, the order that Shakespeare places his scenes together creates more tension which allows the audience to see conflicts and disaster developing.
At the very beginning of the performance a prologue was read to receive the audiences’ attention. The prologue was very short, yet extremely effective and succeeded in grabbing the audiences’ attention. In Romeo and Juliet the prologue told the whole play, including the end. ‘A pair of star-crossed lovers takes their life.’ Most people would think this device ruined the play, as the ending was revealed at this very early stage. However this device was very effective as it implies doom, disaster and tragedy. It also heightened the expectation and suspense that the audience had throughout the whole play.
Shakespeare introduces another character to his play. This character is quite minor, however she has a lot of impact on the play; she is Juliet’s Nurse. The Nurse is the first person to find out about Juliet and Romeo’s plans to marry. As she is Juliet’s nurse she is like a mother to her, she even breast fed her. Because she has brought her up since she was an infant. As Juliet trusts her Nurse, she tells her about the marriage plans, the audience feel a strong bond between Juliet and her Nurse at this point. As Nurse is a responsible woman the audience feel that she will try to talk Juliet out of her immature actions. However the Nurse acts completely the opposite way and agrees to help out with the ceremony, this adds to the tension in the audience, as the audience are aware that this marriage is doomed.
As we see more of the play, the audience understand that the Friar is in a similar position to the Nurse. Romeo goes to Friar for approval and an acceptance that he would marry the secret couple. Friar Lawrence is very weary about this situation and he knows that this is a bad decision. He tries to explain to Romeo about the mistake he is making. Nevertheless Friar eventually agrees to unite Romeo and Juliet as husband and wife. ‘In one respect I’ll thy assistant be.’ Shakespeare is now portraying Friar as a weaker character, as he contradicts himself. The impending sense of tragedy is extremely intense now that the audience is aware that Romeo and Juliet will be married in a few days time.
At the end of the play, the impending sense of tragedy and foreboding which has been created throughout the whole play is finally all pulled together in a very intense ending, where the two lovers both commit suicide because of a rushed mistake. The audience feel a great sense of tragedy as the death of the lovers would not have happened if they had an extra few minutes.
Shakespeare succeeds to create an impending sense of tragedy and foreboding by using a variety of successful devices. For example, he wrote in different moods within a scene, also he included a very important prologue at the beginning of the play. Furthermore, Shakespeare’s adds to his technique by writing parallels and echoes to portray this important sense of foreboding. All of the contrasting styles which Shakespeare adopts in his writing contribute to the tension building in this outstanding play.
