Act one scene one
This conflict is at the start of the play. When the two Capulet servants, Samson and Gregory, are in the street boasting of their effortless perfection and relentless superiority over all Montagues, two of Montague’s servants, Abram and Peter, approach the arrogant duo. They then begin to heckling the Montague’s with
“Do you bite your bite your thumb at us Sir?)
(This style of warfare has never really changed and is still used today with more modern insults.) Then the tensions are rising as the mind games continue between the two houses. When Benvolio, a Montague, tries to make peace and prevent another street brawl; Tybalt, a Capulet, interferes. Then the brawl breaks out and the entire town joins in with the meleé, just using it as an excuse to beat the stuffing out of each-other.
Act three scene one
Mercutio and Benvolio are out in the streets of Verona. Tybalt appears looking for Romeo to accept his challenge to duel, in response to Romeo gate-chrashing the Capulet’s party. When he finally encounters his chosen target, Romeo, he challenges him to a fight, but unfortunately Romeo is married to Juliet now - making Tybalt his cousin - so he refuses his challenge. Then Mercutio, calling Romeo a coward, draws his rapier and says to Tybalt “Good king of cats nothing but one of your nine lives that I mean to make bold” he then starts to duel with Tybalt, who slays him with Romeo’s unintentional assistance. It is because of this that an enraged Romeo disillusioned and deranged with anger charges at Tybalt saying “And fiery-eyed fury be my conduct now”. As his testosterone rises he relentlessly, with no remorse or regret, murders Tybalt.
The conflict affects all characters young and old in the play especially these characters in the table below:
Age in conflict
The old Montagues and the old Capulets
The feud and the entire play are based around the needless stupidity of the quarrel between the old Montagues and the old Capulets and their respective families. Although Lord Montague and Lord Capulet never actually fight and Lord Montague is not really featured in the play, their presence is felt whenever a fight breaks out and the sinister presence of the two protagonists, Lord Montague and Lord Capulet, like two gladiators waiting for the starting bell, are never that far away from the action.
Friar Lawrence
The Friar is a Man of God. He is not bothered with the quarrel but thinks that if he marries Romeo and Juliet then the argument will end for The old Montagues and the old Capulets thus ending the argument without resorting to gang war or mass suicide and bringing peace to fair Verona.
The Nurse
The nurse’s only job in life is to care for and to nurture young Juliet, through the troubled years of her life, as she had done since Juliet was born. She serves as a go-between for the lovers and only gets involved in a conflict when she clashes with Juliet over the proposed marriage to Paris.
Prince Escales
The noble Prince’s job is to keep the peace and enforce law and order in Verona, so naturally he encounters the feud in his daily work. He is as puzzled as everyone else as to the origins of the conflict but he considers this irrelevant. His only concern is to stop any further conflict before people are killed so he enforces a law which states if any Montague and Capulet brawl in the streets they will be executed. This law affects Romeo when he kills Tybalt but since Tybalt killed Mercutio under law he would have been executed anyway. However since enough people have died the Prince lightens Romeo’s sentence to exile under pain of death if he returns; but in those times being exiled was like death anyway.
Youth in conflict
Tybalt
Tybalt’s entire existence is based on the row with the Montagues. This is demonstrated when he says:
“Talk of peace? I hate the word as I hate hell and all Montagues” act1 scene1 line 63
He is a junkie to the feud, and as with many junkies their addiction usually ends their life. This can be seen when Romeo kills Tybalt in pure rage
Benvolio
Benvolio is a peacemaker, but by peer pressure he is drawn into the combat. He is not interested in this, but his skirmishes against Tybalt prove he can take care of himself if it’s required.
Mercutio
He is a leader among others: he is “one of the lads”. He is, however, cocky, arrogant and looking for a chance to show up the Capulets. In trying to achieve this he is killed by Tybalt.
Paris
His only goal throughout the entire play is to marry Juliet. He doesn’t care about the feud; he asks Lord Capulet’s permission for the marriage he agrees. He only encounters the feud when he is killed by a deranged Romeo, who is angry and on a spree of mass destruction, in his search to find Juliet’s dead body to mourn at her grave.
The Most affected characters
As mentioned in the thesis statement the most affected characters are Romeo and Juliet:
Romeo
(Montague)
The name Romeo is a name synonymous with love and romance for its usage in this play as the emotionally insecure son of lord and lady Montague who live in Verona.
At the start of the play he does not care for the feud; he is the mellow, depressed, poetic type. He is more concerned with Rosaline, his first love who wants to become a Nun. He is distraught at this rejection, and his parents show concern. So they ask his cousin, Benvolio, to help him. He learns that Romeo’s love object, Rosaline, will attend the Capulet party that very night. Romeo wants to see her, but Benvolio pleads with him not to waste his time on Rosaline. As he thinks seeing other girls will help him recover from his blurry mood and end his pointless depression.
It is at this party that he meets Juliet, they fall in love with each other and are convinced that they are soulmates. They decide to marry, not caring for the conflict or the consequences of their actions. They are married by Friar Lawrence who is convinced that a marriage linking the warring houses will end the misery between them. That afternoon they promise to meet later that night for the honeymoon. During the day before that however Tybalt, Juliet’s cousin, murders Mercutio Romeo’s friend so Romeo slaughters him. This angers the Prince who exiles Romeo from Verona forever. This act emotionally crushes Romeo, and he tries to kill him himself but the Friar stops him, and says that if he goes to Mantua he will think of a plan to help them both out.
While Romeo is in exile, he does not learn of the Friar’s plan, to make it appear that Juliet is dead. He is now emotionally dead. He rushes out buys some poison and goes to Juliet’s grave. He kills Paris who is guarding the tomb sees the corpse of Juliet, his one, his, love his soulmate, and drinks the poison and dies. Then Juliet wakes up sees his corpse and stabs herself. Then the families end the quarrelled history and bury Romeo and Juliet together.
Juliet
(Capulet)
(Jewel)
Juliet starts out in the play as the sheltered daughter of the rich lord and lady Capulet in Verona. She has had a very sheltered life so far so knows only very little about the conflict. Her only friend is her beloved nurse who raised her, at the start of the play she is very conforming to her any of her parent’s wishes, meeting any man they see fit.
At the party she is supposed to meet Paris who is besotted with her but by fate meets Romeo. They fall in love with each other and are convinced that they are soulmates. They decide to marry, not caring for the conflict or the consequences of their actions. Friar Lawrence, who is convinced that a marriage linking the warring houses will end the misery between the two marries them.
That afternoon they promise to meet later that night for the honeymoon. During the day before that however Juliet’s cousin, Tybalt, murders Mercutio Romeo’s friend so Romeo slaughters him. This angers the Prince who exiles Romeo from Verona forever. This devastates Juliet that her new, husband, and her cousin are both out of her life so quickly. After battling her Father and squabbling with her Nurse, she goes to the Friar for her salvation
. Using his divine wisdom he concocts an ingenious but devious plan: a serum to make Juliet appear dead, so her family buries her. The serum will wear off, then with Romeo at the tomb, she will wake up and they will survive, run away together and live happily.
Romeo, unaware, of the scheme goes to Juliet’s grave. He kills Paris who is guarding the tomb; sees the corpse of Juliet, his one, his love, his soulmate, and drinks the poison and dies. Then Juliet wakes up sees his corpse and stabs herself. Then the families end the quarrelled history and bury Romeo and Juliet together.
Conclusion
This essay proves conclusively that all of the points in the thesis statement are true.
The two most affected characters are Romeo and Juliet as they both die and end the war
