Will now deny to dance? She that makes dainty,
She I’ll swear hath corns. Am I come near ye now?”
At this event everyone is in a happy mood as well as the audience. All thoughts of a tragedy have gone and everyone is enjoying himself within the party. The fighting that occurred at the beginning of the play is now a distant memory in the mind of the audience. Shakespeare has built up the optimism in the audience as if nothing can go wrong.
Soon after Capulet's speech, Shakespeare creates effective drama by switching from the happy and joyful mood of Capulet to the more serious deep love thoughts of Romeo. Shakespeare uses many different types of language in the scene. For example, he uses a huge amount of descriptive writing as Romeo says "So shows a snowy dove trooping with crowsl! The scene also includes lots of similes and metaphors as Romeo says "Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear" . Also, We see Romeo talking about Juliet’s dazzling beauty, which is a huge change in the tone as Romeo saying,
“O she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night As a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear-.”
Shakespeare creates effective drama as Romeo starts expressing his feelings towards Juliet. This is because only a few scenes ago we have seen Romeo drowned in his own love for Rosaline. By showing Romeo's admiration for Juliet too, the audience is set to think that either Romeo is a playboy youth or he has genuinely forgotten about Rosaline.
The drama built up again as Tybalt discovers Romeo's character by his voice. Tybalt -who is vain, fashionable, supremely aware of courtesy and the lack of it- becomes aggressive, violent and quick to take out his sword when he feels his pride has been injured. Shakespeare uses him as a minor character in the play but he has a massive impact on the tragedy storyline.He is infuriated as Romeo is the descendant of his uncle's greatest rival and Romeo is here in Capulet's house. Tybalt speaks very angrily and rough which shows his hatred towards Romeo "This, by his voice, should be a Montague. Fetch me my rapier, boy.” At this point the audience will be very excited to see the old Capulet's reaction to his nephew.
Tybalt’s mood develops as the scene progresses; he gets angrier as his uncle tells him that he must ignore Romeo. Tybalt explains to himself that he is shaking because he needs to act, he is angrily trying to restrain himself because of what his uncle has said to him. He then says “I will withdraw, but this intrusion shall” this signifies that he will leave it now but when Romeo does something else he will attack as this emotion will act like
a poison inside him.
Shakespeare creates a huge amount of tension because the audience don’t know whether they will fight or will just carry on with the party. In contrast to Tybalt, Romeo's speech is very calmly, powerful and romantic "So shows a snowy dove trooping with the crows,As yonder lady o’er her fellow shows", Romeo here is showing his true feelings towards Juliet .
The drama built up again when Romeo sees Juliet for the first time and forgets Rosaline entirely; Juliet meets Romeo and falls just as deep in love as him. This is the moment the audience has been waiting for. The meeting of Romeo and Juliet dominates the scene, and, with extraordinary language that captures both the excitement and wonder in which the two protagonists feel, Shakespeare proves equal to the expectations he has set up by delaying the meeting for an entire act.
This scene is very dramatically created by Shakespeare as Romeo and Juliet speak just fourteen lines before their first kiss. They have shared a sonnet which is an idealized ,poetic form often used to write about love. The shared sonnet between Romeo and Juliet creates a formal link between their love and their destiny. With this sonnet, Shakespeare finds a means of expressing perfect love and linking it to a tragic fate.
The first conversation between Romeo and Juliet also provides the audience with a glimpse of the roles that each will play in their relationship. In this scene, Romeo is clearly the aggressor as timid Juliet simply lets him kiss her. Juliet is still a young girl, and though already in her dialogue with Romeo has proved her intelligence, she is not ready to throw herself into action. But Juliet is the aggressor in the second kiss “Then have my lips the sin that they have took”. The audience can notice her logic that forces Romeo to kiss her again and take back the sin he has placed upon her lips. In a single conversation, Juliet transforms from a proper, timid young girl to one more mature, who understands what she desires and is quick-witted enough to procure it. Juliet’s subsequent comment to Romeo, “You kiss by th’ book,” can be taken in two ways . First, it can be seen as emphasizing Juliet’s lack of experience or he has learned how to kiss from a manual and followed those instructions exactly. In other words, he is proficient. In addition, Juliet is clearly smitten with Romeo, but it is possible to see her as the more incisive of the two. She is nudging Romeo to a more genuine level of love through her observation of his tendency to get caught up in the forms of love rather than the love itself.
Shakespeare creates effective drama as Romeo starts flirting with Juliet calling her a ‘holy shine,’ meaning a sacred worshiping place.
Shakespeare dramatically makes Romeo and Juliet as holy persons describing and ironically call each other pilgrim and saint. Also,he uses Romeo himself in a religious metaphor ‘holy shrine’.This creates more effective drama as the religious overtones of the conversation clearly gives the impression that their love can be described only through the vocabulary of religion. In this way, their love becomes associated with the purity and passion of the divine. However Juliet's character is also shown through this scene as she carries on to push Romeo forward to play games with her. ‘Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?’ Romeo is hoping his luck to kissing her however she also wants to but plays with him.‘Ay, pilgrim ’ Shakespeare makes her dramatic as it seem she is being teased but not,Shakespeare shows their emotion for each other through this. Also,Shakespeare creates his characters through imperative verb such as ‘Give me my sin again’ it shows that Romeo is rules more by his heart than his thoughts.
The scene reaches its high point when Romeo and Juliet discover they are enemies. Shakespeare uses them as ironic love characters however they were born to hate and Shakespeare dramatically makes them born to love; ‘Is she a Capulet? O dear account! my life is my foe's debt.’ Shakespeare refers in Juliet’s lines to ‘love and hate’ and ‘early late’ which are oxymorons of each other showing Juliet’s thought which emphasizes her mix thoughts of Romeo. This is used to feminize the feeling of Juliet as she is loving her enemy but if only she knew this before.
In conclusion,Shakespeare has successfully made the scene dramatically effective by changing characters and tone throughout. The mood switched from being jovial,to serious love, to anger, back to love and then to anxiety and fear. Shakespeare has made this scene the foundation of the whole play. We see all the emotions shared throughput the whole play in this one scene. We also see the plot of the play, which is love and hate at the same time. This builds up tension and makes the audience anxious and thinking about what are going to happen next.
Nowadays, love and hate is still important with drama's building up as it is very effective. Both of them are essential and ideal ingredients for a tragic and romantic plays. Most of the audiences like to see a romantic scene as it makes the play more exciting. Also, using hate as a theme creates high amount of tension as the audience can notice the two contrasting emotions throughout the play. As one of the audience, I think Shakespeare successfully makes the scene dramatically effective as the structure of the play itself is the fate from which Romeo and Juliet can't escape.
