How Does Shakespeare make the events of Act 3 scene 1 inevitable from the opening of Romeo and Juliet and how does he elicit the audience(TM)s sympathy in this pivotal scene?

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How Does Shakespeare make the events of Act 3 scene 1 inevitable from the opening of Romeo and Juliet and how does he elicit the audience’s sympathy in this pivotal scene?

Romeo and Juliet is a tragic play which involves violence and death, but it is also juxtaposed by love, lust, humour and some optimism as well. Juliet is a young girl of thirteen, and is being coerced into a marriage by her mother. Juliet, being an obedient daughter, doesn’t refuse. However she then meets Romeo, the only son of her family’s enemy: The Montagues’. They fall in love and immediately marry in secret, showing that their relationship is purely on lust and impulsiveness which symbolises the youth in the play. Unfortunately, fate will not let them carry on their lives together in the violent climate of which they live. They both die for each other, bringing both feuding families, the Capulet’s and the Montague’s, together. Act three scene one, is seen as one of the main climaxes in the play, this is shown by the way Shakespeare uses dramatic techniques to create tension and conflict. He includes puns, dramatic irony, pathetic fallacy and foreshadowing to add to the effect. At the beginning of the scene, Romeo is seen only as a naïve and poetic lover, and wants only peace with his friends. Tybalt is portrayed as the main man of action throughout the play by using aggressive language and violence. Mercutio, however, is the witty joker and therefore does not take Tybalt’s actions and words seriously, this mistake then costs Mercutio his life and leads to Romeo being banished from Verona.  

        From the very beginning of the play, the Prologue states that there will be violence and death: “Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean”. Shakespeare uses oxymoronic language when describing ‘civil hands’ and ‘civil blood’. This tells the audience that people from noble and respectable blood, will make their hands dirty by involving themselves in violence, blood and death with other honourable people. The prologue also tells the audience that everything in the play all depends on fate and the stars, and that the stars will bring people together but tear them apart too: ”A pair of star cross’d lovers take their life”. At the time that Shakespeare wrote this, many people believed that the stars controlled their fate and destiny. Telling the audience this oxymoronic line, and in extension the ending of the play, shows that the prologue itself creates a sense of fate, by providing the end and the violence of which will happen throughout the play, especially the deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt, and Romeo and Juliet.

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        Love is again juxtaposed in the Prologue: “The fearful passage of their Death mark’d love.” Again Shakespeare uses oxymoronic language to develop tension. ‘Fearful passage’ indicates that people have a dangerous journey to partake in before their lives end. This foreshadows the many deaths and violent fights that will commence between the two families. ‘Death’ is not written as something that happens, it is personified, this makes death seem like a main character in the play, rather than just a theme. It also overrules ‘love’ as it is not personified, and therefore making it seem less important. This foreshadows how ...

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