In the fourth scene we learn of Romeos strife with Mercutio. Romeo is love sickened at the fact that the woman he loves wont say yes to him, he doesn’t want to go to the Capulets party, but Mercutio has a whole different approach to love and tries to persuade him to go to the ball as we see when Romeo Says “Not I, Believe me…..So stakes me to the ground I cannot moves.” This shows us that Mercutio likes to play around with love and that Romeo doesn’t and love will affect him for a long time.
Romeo also has another reason for not going to the ball, it is that he had a bad dream that this night will end in his death. Romeo tells this to Mercutio but again they have an exchange of views where Mercutio tells Romeo that dreamers often lie, in the famous “Queen Mab” speech. Romeo says “I dream’d a dream to-night” then Mercutio tells us about queen mab in the long speech and Romeo replies by saying that “By some vile forfeit of untimely death” this again shows us inner conflict in Romeos mind. He doesn’t know whether to go to the party or not because of the dream. In the end Mercutio persuades him to go with the speech that settles his mind.
The next major scene with friction is in act 3 scene 1 where Mercutio is killed by Tybalt and Tybalt is killed by Romeo, Benvolio and Mercutio are in the public square. Benvolio tries to persuade Mercutio to leave as the Capulets are around and he fears they would not be able to escape a fight should they meet. “I pray thee, good Mercutio, lets retire: The day is hot, the Capulets abroad, and if we meet, we shall not escape a brawl;” Tybalt and other Capulets enter and Tybalt confronts the Montague crowd. Mercutio is antagonistic but Tybalt does not draw his sword. Romeo enters and Tybalt immediately turns his attention to him, wanting revenge for his attendance at the Capulet party. “Well peace be with you sir: here comes my man.”
This is the first time Tybalt has had a confrontation with Romeo so this is a different type of conflict we see in this play. It is different to the first confrontation, as Tybalt wants to fight as Romeo came to his family’s party and not just for the sake of fighting, like the servants were doing at the start. In this scene we see how vengeful Tybalt is and how much Romeo wants to reason with him, as he is now a Capulet also.
Romeo refuses to fight, as he is married to Tybalt’s cousin, but Tybalt will not back down. Mercutio can’t believe Romeo won’t fight so he steps in. Tybalt stabs Mercutio and the Capulets run off. When Tybalt returns, Romeo feels he must avenge Mercutio’s death. “This gentleman, the prince’s near ally, My very friend, hath got his mortal hurt. In my behalf; my reputation stain’d, with Tybalts slander.” This tells us that even though his reputation will be stained he has to kill Tybalt but feels that he has been forced into it as Tybalt killed his best friend.
Tybalt is killed and Romeo, at Benvolio’s urging, runs away. The citizens of Verona, including the prince, Capulets and Montagues arrive at the scene having heard of Mercutio’s death. Benvolio tells the prince what has taken place, though he blames Tybalt completely. The prince chooses to banish Romeo from Verona with death at the punishment of his returning.
We can see that through every possible angle Shakespeare has covered the theme of conflict. We see it in the way the characters interact with each other. We also see opposition in just one person, inner conflict in the decisions Romeo has to make and also those of Juliet. Shakespeare also uses the small themes of antagonism, whereby the servants of each house have minor scuffles just because of the fact they don’t like the name of the other house but really they don’t understand the depth of the ancient grudge and are being laddish.
After the minor scuffles the grudge gets re-ignited and we see large-scale conflict between Romeo and Tybalt where ultimately two people die. Shakespeare successfully explores the theme of conflict by going through the minors so the grudge is back in the air, the to the inner conflicts where decisions where made because of love and he ends the conflict with a major fight that ends in the death of Mercutio and Tybalt.
