The Characters
In the scene which I am looking at there are four characters who I feel are of particular importance. Because of this I will write a short section on each of them saying what type of characters they are through the whole of the play. I am doing this intentionally even though I am only asked to look at the specific scene. I feel that it would be clearer for someone who has no experience of Shakespeare and that it would enable them to better understand the scene. The four characters who I feel have most significance in this scene are, Romeo, Juliet, Tybalt, and Capulet.
Romeo
When you first see Romeo he is an immature and impulsive boy who thinks that he is in love with Rosaline. He is full of artificial expressions and seems to feel sorry for himself. When he meets Juliet it has a dramatic effect on him and his character changes. He matures a lot and even tries to make peace with Tybalt. Despite his new found maturity and tolerance of his arch enemies the Capulets, (maybe because he now loves one of them) Romeo is still impetuous. He has a one track mind and a fixed idea to marry Juliet and around that simply reacts to circumstances.
Juliet
Like Romeo once Juliet has met and fallen in love with Romeo there is only one point of focus in her life. However that is the only thing that Juliet has in common with Romeo at least character wise. Through the play you see Juliet in a hugely different light to Romeo, instead of an immature and rash young person she is quite independent and mature. You see her in a family situation where her mother is a very cold person who thinks of marriage as a business. This inclines me to believe that Juliet forms her own opinions. In the play Juliet is just short of her 14th birthday. She is obedient to her parents up to the point where her love for Romeo makes such obedience impossible. She is an intelligent and perceptive young girl maybe even more so than Romeo. She is loyal to Romeo and defies everyone and everything for him. She is willing to take a dangerous drug so that she does not marry another man and so she stays loyal to Romeo. And at the end of the play she willingly accepts death when she realises that Romeo has died too.
Tybalt
Tybalt is a member of the Capulet family. He shows a deep set hatred associated with the feud, better that any other character in the play. In the first fight at the start of the play he attacks the peacemaker, Benvolio. Tybalt is a ‘’saucy’’ boy who is always eager for a fight, he even wants to challenge Romeo in the party, act 1 scene 5. His final fight with Mercutio and Romeo is a pivotal point in the tragedy. One thing to bear in mind though is that he is never spoken of with anything but affection by both the Nurse and Juliet.
Capulet
Capulet is quite a difficult character to make heads or tails of because of his erratic and contradictory behaviour. He is a rich man who has married a women much younger that himself (as she keeps reminding him). His character seems authoritative and short tempered when Juliet refuses to do what he wants, but at other times he speaks of her lovingly and with affection. I think that he thinks that Juliet is too young to marry and he tries to put Paris off the idea. Only at the end do you see a sympathetic side to Capulet in the light of his daughter’s death.
Language
The first time Romeo sees Juliet he speaks of her using a metaphor, “she doth teach the torches to burn bright”. This is Shakespeare’s way of saying that Romeo thinks that Juliet’s beauty is brighter that a torch, he is telling us that she is a very beautiful person. This is a poetic exaggeration which would fit in because Shakespeare was well known as a poet as well as a playwright. I know it is a poetic exaggeration because torches cannot be taught. Shakespeare would have used this type of descriptive writing because the part of Juliet would have been played by a boy as there were no female actors in his day. Also the boy may have been at a distance from the audience. The metaphor is more that a simple poetic exaggeration though because it tells you that it is night as Romeo can see the torches to compare Juliet to. The use of such descriptive writing is further justified as the audience would have to imagine it was at night because the play would have been performed in day light, and no actual torch would have been allowed in the theatre (the real Globe theatre was destroyed by fire). But, if there had been a private performance in a rich person’s house there might have been torches on the wall if it was night.
Other interesting comparisons include, act 1 scene 2 where Benvolio says he will show women who will make the women (Rosaline) whom he now thinks of as a “swan” look like a “crow” which is supposedly a common and ugly bird. Romeo almost mimicking Benvolios’ play on words, says of Juliet when he first sees her and he doesn’t know her name “a snowy dove among crows, she stands out in a dark room as a bright jewel (which would catch the torchlight) in the ear of a dark skinned person”. The comparison between light and dark makes me think that Juliet is fair skinned and fair haired, but many of the other women are dark. There are other people on the stage but when Romeo is talking of these things he is not speaking to anyone, he is really just speaking has mind or talking to himself, so the name of the speeches are soliloquies.
When Romeo is speaking to Juliet he compares her to a “Holy Shrine” which he may “profane” with his hand. He compares his lips to “pilgrims” with which he can “smooth” away the “rough touch” of his hand with a kiss. In the time the play was written the people who came to see it would have been greatly shocked by Shakespeare’s almost blasphemy of the church, as most of them would have been church going people.
“Gentle sin” is an oxymoron or a contradiction because “gentle” means noble or even virtuous (in the 16th century when the play was written) but a sin is the opposite of noble. Juliet says that handholding is the correct kind of kissing for pilgrims, but the lips are for praying. Romeo’s response to this is to ask for permission to let his lips do what his hands are supposed to, Juliet agrees to “grant” this for the sake of his prayers. When Romeo kisses Juliet, she immediately says she has received the sin he has “purged” from himself. Romeo at once insists to take it back and yet again kisses her!
Throughout the scene (apart from the servants who use informal thou/thee/thy pronoun forms) the characters which include Romeo and Juliet often address each other with the formal pronoun you. When Capulet is talking socially with Tybalt he uses thou/thee/thy but as soon as he gets angry he switches to the more formal pronoun you. The very same thing happens when he becomes angry with Juliet in act 3, scene 5.
