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Literary Devices In Romeo And Juliet

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Literary devices have many roles in works of literature. Writers use literary devices to evoke a desired response from the reader in their works of literature. There are many different literary devices with different purposes. For instance, imagery is one specific literary device that authors use in their work. William Shakespeare is one author who uses imagery to express the tone and mood in his works. In the tragedy Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare uses the imagery of poison and dreams to express the tone of tragedy and death. Shakespeare uses the imagery of poison to express a tone of tragedy. For example, Friar Lawrence speaks of a plant with a powerful poison that possesses the ability to heal and to kill. If it is inhaled and …show more content…

Although, if the consumer 's life is dominated with an evil influence that person will die no matter how they use it. This relates to Romeo and Juliet’s love, which symbolizes the good, while the feud between their families symbolizes the dominating evil. This expresses a tone of tragedy because it foreshadows the sorrow of Romeo and Juliet’s untimely and unnecessary deaths due to the feud. Another example is when Juliet is about to drink the sleeping potion administered to her by the Friar. This potion will feign her death for forty two hours by putting her in a cold, death like, deep sleep. Juliet has a fearful thought that in fact the sleeping potion is a pernicious poison and the Friar is trying to kill her. However, she assuages these fears by reminding herself he is a holy man who would not commit such cunning actions. This foreshadows the lamentable death of Juliet, relating to the tone of tragedy. “What if it be a poison which the Friar subtly hath minist’red to have me dead… methinks it should not for he heath still be tried a holy man.” (Shakespeare iv. iii. 24-29). Lastly, when Romeo heard the news of Juliet’s death he visits an apothecary in Mantua, the place he has been banished to. He was searching for a

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