Romeo and Juliet coursework- Analyse the balcony scene in terms of its significance for the whole play and its romantic language.
Romeo and Juliet coursework- Analyse the balcony scene in terms of its significance for the whole play and its romantic language. Romeo and Juliet is a very well known play, written by the famous playwright- William Shakespeare. It is the romantic tragedy of the ‘star-crossed’ young lovers Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet who both live in fair Verona, Italy. It is, perhaps, best remembered for the famous balcony scene. Romeo and Juliet are teenagers who fall deeply in love at a party in the Capulet mansion, but their families are bitter enemies, only later on do they both realise this dreadful fact, ‘ “My only love sprung from my only hate!” ’ However, they realise that they have already grew too close to each other and once they had declared their love for one another in the balcony scene, ‘ “stony limits cannot hold love out,” ’ they seize the moment and marry in secret. They make every effort to conceal their actions but these end in tragedy when Romeo, Juliet, Tybalt, Mercutio and Paris all die. The themes running through the play address the issues of the consequences of immature blind passion, hatred and prejudice. It is believed that the play was first performed between 1594 and 1595. In the Elizabethan era there was a huge demand for new entertainment and the tragedy would have been produced immediately following the completion of the play. The play was then later, first published in the year of 1597. ‘The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love’ from the prologue indicates to the audience that the two youngsters will both die if their social love was to become real love. This creates dramatic tension in the audience and prepares them for what is going to happen in the rest of the play. This line from the prologue is quite ironic because, what is known from the party in the Capulet mansion as a social love, or fling, develops into a more genuine and permanent love in act II scene II, and if it wasn’t for the balcony scene then the two young teens may not have grown too accustomed to each other bringing their love to this amazingly high level, leading onto their marriage and also, as indicated by the prologue, their fated deaths. In this essay I will primarily be analysing the balcony scene and investigating the significance it holds on the rest of the play. I am also going to be commenting on the plays romantic language, what I think it means and also, what this has to do with the two star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet.Early on, we see the two families, Montague and Capulet, fighting ‘rebellious subjects, enemies to peace’ and then before the balcony scene is the party at the Capulet mansion. This is where Romeo and Juliet first meet and kiss. It is a very crowded and chaotic scene which may also relate to the fact that their love is going to be rather chaotic. The scene is in complete contrast with the balcony scene which follows on from the party as they are alone with no disturbance to interfere with their conversation. There are not many scenes where Romeo and Juliet are alone together, and this being one of them, it is noticed more and is focused on their conversation. The atmosphere is very calm, tranquil and quiet - perhaps how their love should be. Because it is just the two of
them together, alone in the Capulet court yard, this gives them the opportunity to grow closer together and therefore, declare their love for one another. ‘ “th’exchange of thy loves faithful vow for mine” ’‘The fearful passage of their death mark’d love and the continuance of their parents rage, which, but their children’s end, nought could remove’. That quotation from the prologue is telling the audience that from the start their love would end in death. This explains why it is ironic that Romeo says ‘my wedding bed is my grave’. The scene tells us that they are madly in ...
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them together, alone in the Capulet court yard, this gives them the opportunity to grow closer together and therefore, declare their love for one another. ‘ “th’exchange of thy loves faithful vow for mine” ’‘The fearful passage of their death mark’d love and the continuance of their parents rage, which, but their children’s end, nought could remove’. That quotation from the prologue is telling the audience that from the start their love would end in death. This explains why it is ironic that Romeo says ‘my wedding bed is my grave’. The scene tells us that they are madly in love but are from two feuding families. Nowadays, a similar thing could happen between a daughter of a very wealthy, posh family and a son of a rough, poor family from a council estate. If both families were to protest against the love, then it would prove very difficult indeed. Very similar to the play. Later on in the scene, when Juliet is called up to her balcony by her nurse, the fact that Juliet is so high up, Romeo being low down on the ground and them not being able to reach each other signifies how difficult it may be for them to have a proper relationship with each other. This is where the prologue comes in again, it mentioned that their love will be difficult but it also said that it will be difficult because of their feuding families. This is signifying to the audience that soon in the play, something will happen between their families making the relationship difficult and therefore, them both dying ‘death-mark’d love’ Shakespeare cleverly uses dramatic irony in this section because the audience know that this will happen but Romeo and Juliet do not.The scene contains speech which relates to romantic and natural features, ‘ “Juliet is the sun…” ’ The effect this has on the scene is that it doesn’t have any anger or war in comparison to earlier fights and threats.Once the two lovers declared their love for one another and had agreed to marry, this is a very romantic way to end the scene and it created a climax in which the audience will await their exchange of vows in the next scene with great anticipation.‘ “…and refuse thy name.” ’When Juliet says this to Romeo, she means that she wants him to love her and just forget about all the family problems ‘ “…what is in a name?” ’ and that she knows that a name means nothing, Juliet has fallen in love with Romeo and his second name cannot change anything, it doesn’t interfere with their love in anyway. But is Juliet right? Wrong! The name has everything to do with it because her family aren’t just going to watch, what they see as, still a girl, get swept away from them by a boy, and especially not a Montague. Juliet says that if they get married, she will no longer be a Capulet and that changing her name will resolve some of the problems they face together. ‘ “…be but sworn by my love, and I will no longer be a Capulet.” ’Ironically, Juliet doesn’t know that they will die and this creates a twist in the tale, ensuring a good performance for the audience to watch because the audience know that getting married has brought the two, obviously, closer together.Because the balcony scene is so significant in the play, I am now going to explain how I would stage the balcony scene and express my ideas about why it should be staged that way. I want the audience to feel exactly what the characters feel.I would dress Juliet in a tight, baby-pink dress, signifying her innocence and virginity. Also, because she is only young, baby-pink would be the ideal colour. Pink is also associated with love, affection and romantic passion and this particular scene is bursting with it. ‘ “Good Night, Good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.” ’When Romeo is stood listening to Juliet’s speech, the lights will be quite dim but they will then become brighter when they speak to each other. Ass their love grows throughout the scene, the lighting will be getting brighter and brighter until, when love is at its highest, ‘ “th’exchange of thy loves faithful vow for mine.’ ”the lights will be at their brightest. This will portray to the audience that their love is greater and stronger than it ever has been before in the play. The fact that the lights are on at their brightest (full) could also signify that night is near its end and Juliet thanks the night ‘ “O blessed night…” ’For bringing them closer together. Owl noises could also whisper in the background of the scene to emphasise the night.The seperation of the love scene is where Juliet is on the balcony and the two have departed from each other, giving them only the smallest opportunity to say goodnight to one another because the nurse had called Juliet to come inside. At this point, Romeo is grounded from Juliet on the stage floor. The fact that he cant reach or touch her anymore signifies that they have had their good time together and they wont ever have a good one again because the prologue told the audience that they will both die if they become together which ironically is what happened in this scene. To emphasise the fact that they have separated there could be a bright, pink light shining onto Juliet and a dim, blue light shining Romeos way. This could also signify, again her innocence and virginity.Because of the imagery of nature, buds and flowers I will have buds and flowers like ivy, growing up the wall near to the balcony. When their love is growing through the scene, the buds can open up, get brighter and maybe grow. To represent their departure, the buds can turn to a dark colour and close up. ‘ “ a good night indeed.” ’ When Juliet says this to Romeo, the buds can start to slowly disintegrate like their meeting is. Juliet states that love is like a ‘flash’ of light and that love is there one minute and then gone the next. Because this scene is over so quickly and that they are alone, together only for a few short minutes is emphasised by Juliet mentioning that love is like a flash of light. Leading into the balcony scene could be a flash of light and ending the balcony scene could be a flash of light with smoke, almost as if Romeo had disappeared.Some peaceful music will be relevant leading up to when they get disturbed by the guard and a flash of light appear, the music stop and the guard appears, but with a smoke affect from a smoke machine. This may make it look like the guard has appeared out of nowhere and could make the audience feel like Romeo and Juliet are being spied on. This also shows how risky their love is and how dangerous it is for Romeo, ‘ “If they dose thee they will murder thee.” ’ The same can happen when the nurse disturbs them too.Finally, I would dress Romeo in Dark red. This will portray his envious deceit. This is quite the opposite to Juliet and therefore also emphasising their loves difficulty. Throughout the balcony scene, Romeo tries to win over Juliet’s love and affection, and also her hand in marriage by using lots of romantic language. The romantic language holds a lot of significance over the whole play as it brought Juliet and himself closer together. When Romeo says ‘ “arise far sun and kill the envious moon” ’ he is talking about he being the sun and him being the moon. When he says this, it is very ironic as at the end of the play he dies and she does then arise, but only within a spilt second of him taking the potion. Fate brought the story to end like this and to back it up I found a quote from Act III, scene II line 136. ‘ “O, I am fortunes fool.” ’ When Romeo says this it is almost a hint of fate and Romeos over dramatic character.Another typical example of Romeos romantic language is when he says that he would rather die than be without her ‘ “My life were better ended by their hate, than death prorogued, wanting of thy love” ’ I feel that this is important as he does die because of their love at the end anyway. This quote from his speech is very ironic which has a great impact on the audience also as they already know that they will die from what the prologue told them at the beginning of the play.One other part of this scene which has romantic influence over their conversation is when he says ‘ “with loves light wings did I o’perch these walls, for stoney limits cannot hold love out…” ’This means that the big stone walls won’t separate them and come between them and that he would do anything to be with her. This just shows how great his love for Juliet is at this point. Their love is at its highest here.To conclude I am going to discuss all of my ideas and I am going to also, explain why the scene is so significant. I am also going to use my ideas to ask myself the question of: why did Shakespeare include this scene? and how does it change Romeo’s character?I have analysed the balcony scene and have found out that a lot of Romeos romantic language is centered around fate, eg: ‘ “my life were better ended by their hate…” ’Ironically, Romeo says a few things that are related to what is going to happen later on in the play. The fact that they are both going to die. I think that Shakespeare included this scene so that there could be some peaceful interaction between Romeo and Juliet and also, to bring them closer together by declaring their love for one another. If they had declared it at a party or in the middle of a busy high street for instance, it wouldn’t have had the same effect as what it does in this scene as it makes them look peaceful and sweet just like their love should be. Notice I say ‘should be.’In the prologue, the words are carefully placed to fit an iambic pentameter rhythm. The iambic pentameter rhythm is a good way of expressing the plot of the story and letting the audience know what is going to happen in an interesting and knowledgeable way.Romeo is a Montague and so he is from a slightly more laid back family as indicated by parts of the play such as the earlier fights. Because of this he is different from Juliet and the perfect solution to this was to include a scene after the party to introduce the two characters feelings for one another and bring them closer together and ultimately, making their love stronger.I think that Romeo’s character really came on after his meeting with Juliet in the balcony scene. Not only did it bring them closer together, but it changed his character and thus creating their good, strong relationship. Due to the good fate (their love initially working out) and the bad fate (the two of them dying), working together, it formed a good strong plot which then created a magnificent play which is one of the world renowned playwrights most popular plays. In the balcony scene Romeo and Juliet both speak in long sentences and verses, I feel that this represents how much they are in love with one another because if someone is very angry about an incident, they would speak in short, fast sentences with exclamation marks to signify this. An example of this fast, angry speech is in act III scene V line 176 where Capulet says: ‘ “God’s Bread!” ’And also, slightly before that, he says ‘ “out on her, hilding!” ’That is the sort of language used when angry, but when Romeo and Juliet are talking to each other it is quite the opposite and contrasts with this.‘ “By a nameI know not how to tell thee who I am:My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,Because it is an enemy to thee;Had I it written, I would tear the word.” ’This, again proves my thoughts on the romantic speeches used in act II scene II.So, overall I think that they both use romantic language when interacting with each other through this continuing line of long sentences throughout their interaction.Throughout the second scene of Act II, Romeo uses beautiful metaphors and similes to express his affection for Juliet: O, speak again bright angel, for thou art As glorious to this night, being o'er my head As is a winged messenger of heaven. (Romeo. II. II, 28-30.) This passage is used to compare Juliet to an angel, something that is universally held as sacred and lovely, this could be classed as fate because ironically, when she dies she will probably become an angel in her afterlife and so his speech holds quite a lot of fate-like expressions through the similes and metaphors that Shakespeare decided to include, obviously for this reason.Finally, Romeo uses oxymorons in many of his speeches to represent his youthful, ever changing mind and conflict in his emotions towards Juliet because even though he loves her dearly, I feel that deep down he will feel a little scared in act II scene II because of the fact that the guards and Capulets’ would kill him if they found him with Juliet, simply because he was a Montague. The effect this has on the play is that it may make the audience feel that maybe fate was trying to guide him the right way and avoid death, by not being with Juliet and therefore, not dying. However, their love may have been so strong that it twisted fate itself.Maybe fate is a real thing. Maybe fate is held over everybody’s head in some shape or form, but no one actually knows how people fall in love. People could just be psychologically wired up to like certain people and these two just so happened to bump into each other at a party, maybe because of fate, in this wonderful and mystical romantic tragedy.
