Arguably William Shakespeare’s most famous play, Romeo and Juliet follows two star-crossed lovers who struggle to hide their love from their feuding families. Much like how Shakespeare explores both the differences and the relationship between the Capulets and the Montagues, the play highlights the correspondence of opposing themes through three characters named Mercutio, Benvolio, and Tybalt, Romeo’s two friends and sworn enemy. Shakespeare includes Romeo’s counterparts to distinguish his unique personality and to emphasize relationships between major contrasting subjects in the play: comedy and tragedy, peace and conflict, and love and anger. Mercutio acts as both Romeo’s foil and the donor of much light-hearted humor within the play, which contrasts the tragic events that inevitably occur. As Romeo’s complete opposite, or foil, Mercutio often mocks the romance Romeo longs for, focusing instead on the physical aspects of love. For example, when Romeo becomes lovesick for his old flame, Mercutio teases the idea with, “If love be rough with you, be rough with love; / Prick love for pricking and you beat love down” (Rom.I.4.27,28). Sarcastic and carefree jokes such as this one …show more content…
Because these characters are extremely different and constantly fight, Shakespeare sends the message that humans need to coexist. Coexistence means to live together and tolerate any issues present. Each of Romeo’s friends and enemies have moments of anger and dispute, but the main issue becomes using that anger to fuel foolish or wicked acts, like they did in Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare urges the audience to coexist because his work evidently shows that abuse of these emotions ends in catastrophe. Shakespeare includes Romeo’s counterparts to create a distinct personality for him through comparison and simultaneously accentuates opposing themes to stress the need to
Literary devices help readers to better understand writing and help readers get a better understanding of what they are reading. One of the literary devices in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is foil. Foil is two characters who are nothing alike with different qualities. Foil helps bring different types of characters together.
In the play Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare, there are many characters that are used as dramatic foils to one another. By creating these characters, he is able to give more information to the audience about the characters and give more meaning to the play overall by adding to the plot through their conflicts. Throughout the course of the play, there are two characters that stick out the most as dramatic foils; Tybalt and Benvolio. In the play, these two are considered foils since Tybalt is portrayed as an aggressive, hot-headed, and unreliable man, while Benvolio is shown as a trustworthy and rational man who takes on the role of peacekeeper and problem solver during disputes. All throughout the play, Tybalt is always trying to cause
There are many characters in Romeo and Juliet that are interesting in personality and actions, but Romeo and Mercutio have a special bond to each other. They are foils in the play, meaning their two personalities and actions offset each other. When Romeo is sad and heartbroken, Mercutio is there to joke and tease Romeo about his terrible love life. When Romeo is complaining about how love is, “Too rough, too rude, too boist’rous,” (Act 1, IV) Mercutio replies with a joking statement of, “If love be rough with you, be rough with love; Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.” (Act 1, IV)This small retort shows that the characters are nearly opposites, but could not be foils if they were not alike in many ways.
Romeo &Tybalt This play has a lot of characters in the play. There is many different things about every character. Romeo Issa good looking young man he is lovable and careening. Tybalt is a disliked person he is mean and hateful.
In William Shakespeare’s play the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet we are shown how love at such a young age can really make adolescents do crazy things and overreact in many situations. In this play Shakespeare uses foil and many literary devices to convey emotion and to help us understand the way a character acts or feels in a certain situation. Foil is when a character provides a strong contrast to another character. An example of foil would be when two servants, one from Capulet and one from Montague, are fighting and the Capulets and the Montagues enter the scene (Act 1, Scene i, Lines 70-75). Capulet.
Because of Mercutio’s opposing traits to Romeo, he is Romeo’s foil to show Romeo’s significant
Character Defense: Romeo We perceive that Romeo is innocent due to his apparent love for Tybalt and his clear disesteem to the brawl unfolding. He wanted to advent the violence thrust upon him by his love (Tybalt). He cared too much to fight him but when a good life-long friend, Mercutio, is murdered in front of his very eyes he is shaken to the core. He did this while not in the correct state of mind, cleary in a haze of sorrow and guilt not yet fully comprehending the effects of his actions. His gentle altercation with Tybalt defines his love for his friends and family.
First in both Romeo and Juliet and The Interlopers, the conflicts between the families have gone on for many years. In the beginning of Romeo and Juliet, a fight breaks out in the middle of the streets between the Montague and Capulets. This shows that the conflicts between the two families have been
Mercutio is different from Romeo because he does not believe in love and makes fun of Romeo and falling in love so heavily all the time. When Romeo describes his love for Rosaline using a rose with thorns as a metaphor. Mercutio laughs and says ”If love be rough with you, be rough with love; Prick love for pricking and you beat love down”(I.4.27-28). In another scenario of Romeo and Mercutio’s foils is when Romeo tells his friends about a dream he had about the party and is expecting a disastrous outcome of the party. Mercutio makes fun of Romeo because he does not believe that dreams can become visions of impending danger.
Romeo is very fixated on love, easily heartbroken, and depressed. These traits are more obvious as Mercutio’s humor and his ability to be reasonable lighten the rather dark shadow Romeo carries. Mercutio’s line, “If love be rough with you, be rough with love. Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.” (I, iv, 27-28)
This striking character foil in this timeless tragedy emphasizes by contrast the two juvenile men’s individual personalities. Throughout the play it becomes apparent that Romeo’s cousin, Benvolio, takes on the role as the peacemaker. For instance, Benvolio goes betwixt the Montagues and
Romeo and Juliet is a play written by William Shakespeare, in the 16th century. The narrative of the play is about two star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet, who fail to understand the consequences of hate between two families. Romeo and Juliet-who are great admirers of each other- are from two different families; The Capulets and The Montagues. These two clans have been violent rivals for years and are bitter enemies. In this day and age- when the play was set- honour and pride was given great importance; it was worth sacrificing a life to defend your dignity.
The story of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare revolves around Romeo and his troubling love life. Romeo overcomes many obstacles and broken hearts on his journey to find the love of his life with his best friend Mercutio by his side. A young Juliet walks into Romeo’s life leaving him speechless and amazed, but their parent’s rivalry will end up being the reason why Romeo and Juliet kill themselves, so they won't have to live a life without each other. Although Romeo and Mercutio are best friends, they are both very different in the way they live their life. Although they both are very friendly and caring people, Mercutio and Romeo differ in their feelings about love and how serious they take life.
At last but not least, the author employs negative diction, such as: “vexed” (1.1.199), “madness” (1.1.200), and “gall” (1.1.201). “Vexed” denotes annoyed, and “madness” denotes insanity. Since Romeo is referring to love in such a negative way, this shows that Romeo is pessimistic about love. In this passage, the metaphors demonstrate that love is short-lasting, depressing, and conflicting. Due to the metaphor and negative diction in this passage, the author characterizes Romeo as a person who is conflicted and frustrated by love.
“Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare entertains the audience through use of character, language and drama. The plot focuses on the theme of conflict and consequences, using deep characterisation, descriptive language and high drama to entertain. Act 3 Scene 1 focuses on a brutal feud between two enemies and Act 3 Scene 5 follows the patriarchal society’s approach to women marriage and societal expectations. Shakespeare forces the audience to engage with the idea of conflict and what it must have been like to live through this time. Shakespeare cleverly utilises a changing atmosphere in Act 3 Scene 1 to expertly entertain his audience.