GCSE Romeo and Juliet

Christopher Evans 10D2

H/wk

“Death-marked Love”: Through Consideration of Dramatic Technique, Characterisation and Language, Explore How Shakespeare Links Love and Tragedy in ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ Select Specific Scenes For Close Analysis.

Throughout ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ the concept of their love being ‘death-marked’ is key to understanding the sickening sense of inevitability that tragedy brings. Shakespeare wants this play to be different from any other tragedy; he wants to involve love, which usually is the subject of most comedies. By linking love and death, he creates an overwhelming sense of slipping from a positive to a negative atmosphere. In other words; an even more devastating storyline. In this essay, I aim to explore the different techniques Shakespeare uses to convey this image.

We can begin at the start of the play, where Shakespeare immediately tells us the climax and ending. We now know that both Romeo and Juliet will die and the tale to be told is not a particularly pleasant one. The prologue, which gives us this information, is not just there to set the scene. As we know that love is going to end in death, we know that all the plot twists are irrelevant. This dramatic irony stresses the fact that all the proceedings will lead to sadness and the audience are left with a feeling of inevitability of the misery that will be felt at the end of the play. The experience is supposed to be a cleansing process for the audience; an experience they should come out of valuing their own lives more, as well as thinking with a more open mind about the world and coincidence. Almost all tragedies stick to this principle.

To insure that this fate is never forgotten, Shakespeare continues to link love and death through the entirety of the play. The most obvious ways he does this is through language. In Act 3 Scene 3, Romeo finds out that the Prince has banished him from Verona. He realises that he could never see Juliet again and wishes that he could be dead instead: ‘And fall upon the ground as I do now, taking the measure of an unmade grave.’ This immediately reminds the audience that ultimately, the play will end in death, despite Romeo being so desperate to see Juliet. Love very easily turns into death. It is very ironic, considering we know his death will come anyway.

We see this again at the beginning of Act 3 when Shakespeare immediately introduces violence and the deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt are the results. When experiencing the transition between the wedding scene and the fight, straight away we again pick-up the inevitability of the play. The audience are waiting for the moment when the death will occur and this constant linking prolongs the final scene and creates suspense.

Dialogue linking love to death, or violence, is repeated constantly, and builds up to the climax of the story when Romeo kills himself. In his long speech, he begins ...

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Dialogue linking love to death, or violence, is repeated constantly, and builds up to the climax of the story when Romeo kills himself. In his long speech, he begins to convince himself more and more that his death is right for everyone, including himself: ‘Ah, dear Juliet, why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe that unsubstantial Death is amorous…’ The audience can see that this is slowly heading in one obvious direction; from love to death. Romeo does not want death to be the lover of Juliet. He is determined to follow her to the afterlife to prevent that: ‘For fear of that, I still will stay with thee, and never from this palace of dim night depart again.’

The speech then moves on to its finale: ‘Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you the doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss a dateless bargain to engrossing Death!’ This is possibly the biggest and most daring link between love and death in the entire play. One of the most well-known and utilised symbols of love is now the pathway to which death can be found. Shakespeare uses these lines here so that it is clear that the climax had now arrived. It ties up the play well by summing up all the other links between love and death in one final phrase. However, the most interesting aspect of these lines is how many different links between love and death there are. ‘The doors of breath;’ our lips give us life through the air we take-in. Romeo orders his lips to seal the everlasting contract with Death: ‘Seal with a righteous kiss…’

The long wait for Romeo’s own death is clearly over, as shown by his final line in the play: ‘Thus with a kiss I die;’ even then a link between love and death (although you could argue he is simply repeating his earlier comments.)

By constantly making connections between these two opposites so key to the plot, Shakespeare can extend the dramatic irony already begun in the prologue into the plot itself. It is a constant reminder of the ending of the play that allows the audience to keep perspective of the storyline.

It is not only the language used in ‘Romeo and Juliet’ to link marriage to violence etc. it is also the way the drama is structured and the dramatic techniques used. The prologue is a clear example of how Shakespeare uses this to great effect. By stating the ending at the beginning, it creates the sense of irony throughout. There are many other examples, however, where the writer decides he will structure his scenes in a specific way to link love and death together:

In Act 2 Scene 5, Juliet is waiting for news from the Nurse. She is hoping that Friar Lawrence will agree to her and Romeo’s marriage. When the Nurse finally arrives, the tidings are positive, the wedding goes ahead. A very similar scene is Act 3 Scene 2; where Juliet, unaware of the murderous events of the day (Tybalt and Mercutio’s deaths) longs for her wedding night to come. However, when the Nurse returns with a rope ladder for Romeo to climb, she delivers the news of Romeo’s murder of Tybalt, a devastating blow for Juliet and her marriage.

Shakespeare uses the similarity in scenes to stress the inevitability of the eventual deaths of the leading characters in the play. By using exactly the same setting and characters, and by twisting and perverting the plot, the audience can see very clearly that fate is not on Romeo and Juliet’s side and that whenever anything positive happens, it will eventually turn negative. The scenes are there as a clear way of showing this to the audience, and the opposite events shown are linked by the similarity of these scenes, (A link of love to death).

Another area where Shakespeare uses these techniques in Act 5 Scene 1 and Act 5 Scene 3. At the beginning of the first scene, Romeo tells the audience of his dream. In this, Juliet finds Romeo dead and kisses him alive again. When Juliet actually finds him dead in the Capulet vault in the second scene, the dramatic irony becomes obvious; it is the complete opposite to his dream. Shakespeare does this to show the audience the inevitable fate once more. By stating such a coincidental dream earlier in the play, the audience get the impression that all of this was meant to happen.

By using positive scenes involving love, and similar negative scenes involving death, Shakespeare can continue to link both concepts.

The final key area to study when looking at Shakespeare’s techniques to promote tragedy is the purpose of different characters, in particular, the Nurse and Friar Lawrence. These two are the advisers for Romeo and Juliet in the play and act as parent-like figures. The necessities for such characters come in two different forms. In the context of the plot, both Capulet and Montague, as heads of the family, are not always there for their respective son and daughter. The Nurse and Friar are almost guardians to Romeo and Juliet. However, it is when we look at tragedy and inevitability, we see that the figures serve another purpose. We have already discussed many methods used by Shakespeare to develop this sense, yet this is probably the most linked to the audience as the two characters voice them in the play.

As the viewers look on, they already know what the final outcome of the plotline will be. As Romeo and Juliet go through the motions of the storyline, we are sat there, motionless; watching it unfold in front of our knowing eyes. The words of wisdom given by the Friar to Romeo in Act 3 Scene 3, for example, are what we would say as an audience, knowing that death is soon coming to the Montague. How does this support the linking of love to death and tragedy? The characters are Romeo and Juliet’s only hope when trying to turn their fate around. They delay the inevitable and desperately try to keep proceedings moving. When the Nurse and Friar Lawrence are unable to help (when Romeo is in Mantua) this is when everything goes so horribly wrong. The characters delay the final finale, but when their presence is not at hand this brings about it. Shakespeare needs the characters to be the difference between success and failure. He can then create a convincing ending, and bring about what we all knew was going to happen, by taking them away.

In conclusion, Shakespeare links love and death in ‘Romeo and Juliet’ to give the impression that death was always inevitable. The main focus of any tragedy is to show that the main characters’ fate is unavoidable and is always going to occur. By involving love as an extra in this tragedy, the audience experience a slow movement from immense happiness to misery. The contrast emphasises the terribly unlucky circumstances in the plot.

Shakespeare uses a range of different techniques to link love and death such as dramatic technique (scene structure), language, character and situation. By using all these different methods, the audience gain a clear and full understanding of the inevitability of proceedings. ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is a tale of a couples’ search for happiness, but as with any tragedy; it always goes wrong.