The tension increases with Romeo’s entrance. Mercutio has helped create the tension by play off Tybalt’s words to mock Tybalt, “Consort? What Dost Thou make us minstrels?” Mercutio is the person who is reckless, arrogant and liable to fight. So, a verbal fight starts between Tybalt and him, which means they are fighting with the language they used. For example: Tybalt said, “You shall find me apt enough to that, sir, and you will give me occasion.” Mercutio said, “Could you not take some occasion without giving?” Every time Tybalt said something to Mercutio, Mercutio splits a word from Tybalt’s sentence back to Tybalt. In another word, Mercutio tries to twist the meaning of what Tybalt said and get Tybalt to start the fight. The audience at this moment is waiting for the fight and they are willing to see the fight. They can feel the high tension between Mercutio and Tybalt. Benvolio warns them that they are in a public place where “all eyes gaze on us” but they seem not to care. Actually, Tybalt is interested in quarrelling with Romeo. The quarrel carries on until Romeo enters the scene, feeling happy from the marriage with Juliet. This is a dramatic irony point, as only the audience knows that Romeo has just married Juliet. The entry of Romeo also reminds the audience the contrast between the romantic, hopeful and happiness in the previous scene, and the violent, death and hopelessness in this scene.
Tybalt’s treatment of Romeo creates a growing sense of menace. Tybalt said, “thou art a villain.” Shakespeare uses threatening language such as “villain” and it was seen a huge insult at that time. Instead of Mercutio being aggressive, Tybalt was aggressive as well. Because Juliet is Tybalt’s cousin, Romeo does not want a fight occurring between the houses, because he and Juliet are married, he will not fight someone who is now a member of his own family. However, Tybalt and Mercutio do not know Romeo will not be provoked into a fight, Tybalt is still determined to fight with Romeo, as language “Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries that you hast done me,” is used. Mercutio is disgusted at Romeo and thinks that he is submitting to Tybalt’s insults in a shameful way.
And they are still trying to start the fight. After all, Mercutio successfully starts the fight between Tybalt and himself. The fight between Mercutio and Tybalt creates excitement. Shakespeare uses the language, “ O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!” to make the scene more exciting. The fight begins, it is an exciting moment for the audience, because the action, the sound, the movement that the characters makes during the fight is a visual excitement for the audience, they already feel very involved in this scene and can still feel the high tension between Mercutio and Tybalt, these are what the audience waits for, from the very beginning of the scene. Mercutio’s insults to Tybalt revolve around his name. The animal imagery of “rat-catcher” and “king of cats” is continued as Mercutio threatens to take on of Tybalt’s “nine lives”, and becomes ironic as he describes his fatal wound as “a scratch”. During the fight between Mercutio and Tybalt, Romeo tries to stop them by reminding them the consequences. “Gentlemen, for shame, forbear this outrage”; “The Prince expressly hath forbid this bandying in Verona streets.” Romeo uses the same language technique as Benvolio at the beginning of the scene, try to calm down Mercutio and Tybalt by the use of iambic pentameter blank verse. This speech reminds the audience about the consequences of fighting in Verona. “Tybalt under Romeo’s arm thrusts Mercutio in.” This stage direction builds up excitement and tension within the audience. The audiences are excited because the fight is over and wait for Romeo’s reaction; tension builds up because the audience starts to wonder what will happen to Tybalt under the consequences of disobeying the Prince’s words. Mercutio does not say a lot after he was hurt. He just says a few words. “I am hurt.”, “A plague o’ both your houses. I am sped.” The first quote is short, shape, and straight to the point. The second is a plague sped on the Montague and Capulet. Mercutio’s language is full of humour. He says his wound is not as “deep as a well” nor as “wide as a church door”, but it is enough. He tells Romeo that if he asks for him tomorrow he will find him “a grave man”, meaning he will not be making any more jokes because he will be in his grave.
The death of Mercutio created excitement as well. Mercutio has repeated the line “a plague o’ both your houses” for two other times. The use of repetition emphasise that Mercutio blames both of Romeo and Tybalt for his death and the power of three make the audience aware more on this curse. Mercutio’s role in the play is to add humor to it. He still carries the humor with him even he is badly injured by Tybalt and uses dramatic language such as “Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to death! a braggart, a rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of arithmetic – why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm.” However, his type of honor changed into black honor at this point. The quote above also explains the reason Mercutio curse the plague on both of the houses. It is because Mercutio was hurt under Romeo’s arm, he thinks if Romeo was not in his way, Mercutio himself would not be wounded. The audiences now are waiting to see what will happen to Mercutio and what Romeo is going to do. They want to know whether Mercutio is going to die and what is the reaction of Romeo if his best friend is dead.
Romeo feels he must average his friend, “Either thou, or I, or both must go with him.” This sentence emphasises either Tybalt, Romeo or both of them is going to die with Mercutio. Romeo starts the fight for the revenge of the death of his best friend. “They fight. Tybalt falls.” The death of Tybalt means the marriage between Romeo and Juliet, and the relationship between the Montague and the Capulet are going to get worse. Benvolio says that Romeo must escape quickly before he is caught, “the Prince will doom thee dead,” “hence be gone, away.” Otherwise Romeo will be subject to the death penalty as Prince Escalus warned at the start of the play. Romeo says he is “fortune’s fool”, then leave. This quote refers specifically to his unluckiness in being forced to kill his new wife’s cousin.
It is because Tybalt is Juliet’s cousin, and Romeo killed Tybalt; a Montague killed a Capulet in the middle of the street! The audience starts to wonder what the Prince will do to Romeo and what is Juliet’s reaction to this death. Tension, suspension and apprehension are building up in the audience.
After that, the Prince, Old Montague, Old Capulet and their wives enter the stage. Benvolio states what has happen to the characters on the stage verity, and the audience is now waiting for the Prince’s judgment. Shakespeare kept the audience in suspense by wording Benvolio’s long speeches; therefore the audience needs to wait for Benvolio finishes his speech before they can know anything about the Prince’s reaction. The tension increases as the audience will wonder how Romeo and Juliet will ever be together again and how the story will continue.
Shakespeare placed one of the main dramatic points at the end of the scene, because this keeps the audience’s tension and excitement. The audience needs to wait till the end of the scene in order to find out what the Prince is going to say about this event.
After Benvolio’s long speech, Lady Capulet is crying and pressuring the Prince to kill Romeo because Romeo killed Tybalt, “Romeo slew Tybalt, Romeo must not live.” But Old Montague is also saying that the reason Romeo killed Tybalt is because Tybalt killed Mercutio in the first place, Romeo was just taking the revenge.
The Prince has thought about all the issues in this case and finally comes up with the idea of banishing Romeo from Verona. “Immediately we do exile him hence.” The tension and suspension within the audience are partly released at this moment, because they finally know what the consequence for Tybalt’s death.
Act III Scene I is a fast pace scene, which keeps the audience’s tension and suspension from the very beginning till the end. Before this scene, it was a romantic play, but it changes into a tragedy because the death of Mercutio and Tybalt. Shakespeare emphasized the humor in the play had died with Mercutio by the use of black humor in the last few sentences of Mercutio’s speech. He also used different sorts of devices like, dramatic irony, contrast between the scenes and the use of different language techniques to help him made the scene dramatic for the audience.
