How does Shakespeare present the characters of Romeo and Juliet in Act Two, Scene Two of the play?

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How does Shakespeare present the characters of Romeo and Juliet in Act Two, Scene Two of the play?

In The Prologue of Romeo And Juliet, the fate of the “star-crossed lovers”, the title characters, is already told. They have been doomed to “take their [lives]” before the play has even begun. This foretelling of what the audience is about to see displays that the play is about how and why the events unfold, and not what happens. Act Two, Scene Two is an important scene in the play, which is because this is where Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet, the two children born of the “fatal loins” of their feuding parents, meet for the second time, after Capulet’s Masquerade. They fall in love, starting the chain of fated events that cause their deaths.

Before meeting Juliet, Romeo was seen to be melancholic; he was supposedly in love with Rosaline, which was unrequited. He seemed to be introspective, and have a very negative outlook; in Act One, Scene One his father, Montague, said that Romeo had been shutting himself “[a]way from light” in his room. Romeo appeared to have a very poetic, yet bleak, attitude to love. This is demonstrated by Romeo’s use of extended oxymoron in Act One, Scene One, where he talked of “loving hate”, and “misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms”. His poetic words seemed to indicate that perhaps Romeo was not in love, rather in love with the idea of being in love. He spoke of Rosaline, the object of his love, as though she was a deity, even stating she has characteristics of the goddess Diana (“she has Dian’s wit”). The goddess Diana was an emblem of chastity, and the object of Romeo’s affections has taken a vow of chastity. Ironically, Romeo refuses to “examine other beauties”, as his friend and kinsman Benvolio suggests at the end of Act One, Scene One.

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In Act One, Scene Five, when Romeo firsts saw, spoke to, and kissed Juliet, he still used decorative language, and said similar to what he had previously said about Rosaline. He said that Juliet “doth teach the torches to burn bright”, a metaphor, after first seeing her in Act one, Scene Five, after calling Rosaline the “all-seeing sun” in Act One, Scene Three. This seems to indicate that Romeo is too quick to announce his love, saying of Juliet what he had said not long ago about Rosaline. He did, however, denounce his previous love and say that his ...

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A good essay with a variety of well selected embedded quotes to show Rome and Juliet's characters. Some excellent and thorough language analysis clearly following PEA (point, evidence and analysis formula). Good contextualisation of scene under discussion. Topic sentences needed at the beginning of each paragraph. Alternative arguments ie from critics needed to give a more rounded answer. ***