Mercutio is known as being crude and loud while being sarcastic. However, Benvolio is the opposite of Mercutio because he’s very calm and sensible. They have different views on life because Mercutio is very impatient and sarcastic by Benvolio is responsible and a pacifist, so he doesn’t mock others. That is the main difference between the two.
Mercutio is a character who takes one extreme view. Mercutio is a unique character who uses powerful imaginative language. For him love means sex. He is full of brutal bravado. He mocks pretensions to romantic love and so is marked contrast to Romeo. Right from the beginning of the story there is music, dancing, comedy, sword fights and wits. The play is full of action and energy. Shakespeare’s use of language is very interesting. The contrasts in the play are expressed in many different styles. These range from formal poetry to witty puns, from the angry outbursts of Juliet’s father to the passionate idealism of the lovers. We feel the atmosphere of the play through its language.
Mercutio was a strong and important character in William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet. Mercutio refers to love in a physical, sexual and crudely way. Romeo on the other hand refers to love in a romantic, emotional and idealistic way. Mercutio has two main roles. He was not only the Prince’s kinsman, but also Romeo’s best friend. Mercutio was an intelligent, eccentric and loyal friend to Romeo. His language was full of sexual allusions. For example, in Act 2, Scene 1 he says “an open et caetera, thou art a paper’ in pear!” this quote is full reference to sex, this affects the rich and poor audience alike as they would appreciate it.
One of the qualities Mercutio shows is being humorous. Mercutio in his long soliloquy to Romeo and Benvolio shows this. He is trying to explain to Romeo that there are other “fish in the sea”, and not to be down about the one that doesn’t love you. When Romeo says, “I dreamed a dream tonight”, Mercutio came back to say, “Oh then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes in shape no bigger than an agate stone.” Mercutio goes on to say that the fairy is drawn by a team of horses of little tiny creatures. After explaining what her coach and what she looks like the fools around by exclaiming, “And in this state she gallops night by night Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream on curtseys straight.” Romeo was getting irritated with Mercutio’s little speech so by the next couple lines Romeo basically tells him to shut up. The soliloquy shows how he can fool around. Mercutio is close to Romeo so he acts dumb to give him a well deserved laugh.
Mercutio’ second quality is arrogance. Mercutio is extremely arrogant in Act 3, Scene 1. This is when Tybalt comes to fight Romeo for crashing the Capulet ball. Tybalt wants to fight Romeo, but he tries talking his way out of it, but Mercutio being the man he is gets back in on things. Mercutio and Tybalt fight until knowingly Romeo jumps in front of the fighting, not before Tybalt with the best swordsmen in Verona, and talks himself up, and yet he gets beat, this shows his arrogance.
Then last quality is devotion. Mercutio is Romeo’s best friend, he has been with him in good and bad times. Mercutio gets involved in with the fight between what was supposed to be between Romeo and Tybalt, but he steps in because he knows that there was no way Romeo could win. Another account was when he took Romeo to the Capulet ball. Romeo was down about Rosaline, and he felt obliged to help his friend.
Mercutio is a character that shows good examples of the three qualities, humour, arrogance and devotion. If anything else these qualities got him into a lot of trouble and finally to his death… He paid a good price for his actions. But was a good character nevertheless.
In the Elizabethan times women were classed as second class citizens and were bossed around by men. Only wealthy girls were taken seriously but the men still had an advantage. This is shown in the beginning of the play. The conversation between the Capulet servants Gregory and Sampson. Here they talk about the Mountague women and they say that they are weak. “Tis true and therefore women being the weaker vessels”. (Act 1, Scene 1, Lines 14 - 15). This suggests that even though they are servants they still have the power to take advantage of the Mountague women. They also talk about raping the lady servants and pushing the Mountagues men. “I will push Mountagues men from the wall, and thrust his maids to the wall”. (Act 1, Scene 1, Lines 16 - 17). This suggests that the Capulet servant can do anything to the Mountagues lady servants and they cannot object and have to go through with it.
The first time we see Romeo he is in love with Rosaline but heartbroken. He talks to Benvolio about his love for Rosaline but the fact that she does not love him back. “Out of her favour where I am in love.” (Act 1, Scene 1, Line 162). He talks to Benvolio on why she doesn’t love him. “Well, in that hit you miss, she’ll not be hit with cupid’s arrow.” (Act 1, Scene 1, Lines 202 - 203). He exaggerates his love for Rosaline by saying why was she not hit with cupid’s arrow. To the audience Romeo looks sensitive. Our impression of him is that he is in love with the idea of being in love. Rather then loving the women he is with he is in love with his feelings about being in love with them.
In lines 6-14, while Mercutio is mocking Romeo, he shows us his views on love. He belives its purely physical. If the person falls in romantic love, they are mad. When Mercutio describes Rosaline’s physical features, it shows us he feels that love is skin deep and he doesn’t get to know the women. Mercutio dismisses the romantic and emotional ideal of love and sees it only as a physical pairing. He describes “… Rosaline’s bright eyes, by her high forehead and her starlight lip, but her fine foot, straight leg and quivering thigh…” this shows that Mercutio only sees women as a whore, whereas Romeo sees them as angels.
Mercutio is a good and loyal friend to Romeo. However, ironically, it is his concern for Romeo and his effort to cheer him up that makes him responsible for the first step towards tragedy in the play. Mercutio says: “Nay gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.” In Mercutio’s eyes it is a dishonourable submission, but in the audience’s eyes it isn’t because we know that Romeo is married to Juliet. Therefore, encouraging Romeo sees them as angels.
Mercutio thinks Romeo’s love for Rosaline has weakened him and he is no match for Tybalt. He says “Alas, poor Romeo, he is already dead! – stabbed with a white wench’s black eye…” Mercutio is already setting the scene, to say that he has already lost a fight.
Mercutio does not know about Romeo’s marriage to Juliet, thus making him Tybalt’s cousin. Therefore, Mercutio is horrified at Romeo, refusal to fight Tybalt. In disgust, he says “Oh calm, dishonourable, vile submission!” this means that Mercutio thinks that Romeo is dishonouring his family. It is also an irony, because the audience know that Romeo is married to Juliet, but Mercutio doesn’t know.
When Mercutio is fatally wounded, his own personal tragedy leads him to forget his loyal to Romeo. He feels bitter to both families, and thus unwittingly predicts the tragedy to follow when he says “A plague a ‘both your houses!” This shows that Mercutio is cursing the two households.
Mercutios’ famous “Queen Mab” speech is motivated by Romeo’s stubborn refusal to join in the fun that Benvolio and Mercutio have planned. Mercutio delivers the speech as though he were afflicted with some sort of deep personal hysteria. This delivery makes for an interesting effect, but it obscures the fact that Mercutio has a very clear main point, which is that Romeo is being silly.
Mercutio starts off elaborately describing a fictional Queen Mab, in which he articulates of a fairy who evokes dreams in the unconscious mind of sleepers and depicts the absurdity he feels about dreams. It is his mocking response to Romeo trying to tell of his dream from the night before. Romeo has just said that his dream has told him it is not wise to go to Capulet’s feast, and Mercutio sets out to show how unreliable dreams are. When Romeo declares that dreams are truthful, Mercutio replies, “O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you” (1.4.53). It’s possible that “Mab” was a name for the Queen of Faries, but Shakespeare’s audience would have heard “Queen” combined with “Mab”, both slang names for a slut or whore. “Mab” was also used to refer to a woman who dressed sloppily. Thus the name “Queen Mab” summons up a picture of a careless, good-time girl who will give you what you want. Mercutio then goes on to describe Queen Mab as “the fairies midwife” (1.4.54). A human midwife is a woman who assists with the birth of a baby, but ‘the fairies midwife’ assists with birth of people’s dreams, and the rest of the description of Queen Mab is a kind of commentary on how dreams are born.
Mab, says Mercutio is “no bigger than an agate-stone… on the fore-finger of an alderman” (1.4.55-56). Agate is not really a gem, so to give cheap rings more class, jewellers would etch tiny figures on agates. Queen Mab is as tiny and is suggested just as trashy and flashy.
Mercutio foes onto describe the rest of Queen Mab’s equipment. It’s all nearly illusory, made of material that is there, but on a second look, not there, it is a dream. Queen Mab’s ‘waggoner’ is described as a “small grey-coated gnat… not as big as a round little worm… prick’d from the lazy finger of a maid” (1.4.67-69). Old wives’ tales had it that worms grew in the fingers of lazy girls; when such a girl pricked her finger with a needle, the worms floated out in the blood. But the worms were so tiny that they couldn’t be seen. So Queen Mab’s coachman is smaller than an invisible worm.
The reason Mercutio injects such a poignant sense of the Elizabethan era is because he is a reflection of the inflated, misguided superiority men felt over women. Mercutio has a view of love which was very much common belief by men in Elizabethan times, that woman are only good for one night stands and that once a woman has been used for her physical appeals she is no longer fit for their eyes.
Queen Mab is also a mischief-maker. She tangles the manes of horses and the hair of people. She introduces virgins to sex: “this is the hag, when maids lie on their backs… that presses them and learns them first to bear” (1.4.92-94). “Good carriage” is good deportment, but as Mercutio uses it, it’s the ability to carry the weight of a man.
Mercutio is about to say more about Mab’s mischief when Romeo asks him to please, please shut up, crying out “Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace! Thou talk’st of nothing” (1.4.95-96). The idea that he’s talking of nothing is exactly Mercutio’s point, and he hammers it in: “True, I talk of dreams…which are the children of an idle brain…Begot of nothing but vain fantasy” (1.4.96-97). Mercutio goes on to say that fantasy is as changeable as the wind, and Benvolio (who really wants to go to the party) remarks that this “wind” is getting to be a real problem. Supper is over, and if they don’t go into Capulet’s soon, they will be too late. To this Romeo replies:
“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 closed in my breast
By some vile forfeit of untimely death.
But He, that hath the steerage of my course,
Direct my sail! On, lusty gentlemen” (1.4.104-113)
This is a foreshadowing of what actually happens in the rest of the play. A fateful chain of evens (consequences) does begin its appointed time (date) that night, and that chain of events does terminate the duration of Romeo’s life with premature death. But despite his premonitions, Romeo does go into Capulet’s house. He says that he is doing so because he is entrusting his fate to “He, that hath the steerage of my course”. The reference of “He”, is presumably God, but Romeo seems more melodramatic than religious. Mercutio has light-heartedly urged him to be light-hearted, but Romeo has steadfastly held onto his image of himself as a victim of hopeless love and implacable fate.
In conclusion, Mercutio has a very prominent role in the play as both a joker and a trigger for the plot. Mercutio is Romeo’s friend and his humour is used as a spirit for entertain in the play.
