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Foils In Shakespeare's The Tragedy Of Romeo And Juliet

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The tragedy of Romeo and Juliet is about Romeo, a Montague, falls in love with Juliet, a Capulet, and they cannot be together because their families have a long-lasting family feud. Before everyone reads Romeo and Juliet, they think that Romeo and Juliet are in love from the beginning of the story. However, Romeo is sad and heartbroken because Rosaline didn’t want to be his lover. While Romeo is sad, Mercutio, the cousin of the prince, grows in strength and happiness. Their foil is the more Romeo is sad, the more Mercutio is joyful and tries to make Romeo happier. In the beginning of the story, Mercutio tries hard to cheer Romeo up from being so heartbroken.
Mercutio is invited to go to the Capulet’s party and Romeo sees that Rosaline is invited …show more content…

Mercutio knows Romeo better than any other characters and because Mercutio and Romeo are foils, it is easy for Mercutio to tell that Romeo is in love. Mercutio also is able to tell who Romeo’s new found love and is quick to tell him that Romeo and Juliet getting married will cause more problems between their families.(Padgett Mercutio) Mercutio foreshadows the fate and tragic end to the story while he is dying he says “ A plague o’ both your houses!” (A3si) he states this at Romeo and Tybalt and at the Montagues and the Capulets, telling them that their family feud will not end until “a plague” has destroyed each house. Knowing the ending of the story, readers know that he is referring to the death of the child from each house. While Mercutio is dying Romeo is deciding what he wants to do to Tybalt for killing his friend. After Mercutio dies Romeo realizes that Tybalt must pay for what he has done, Romeo kills Tybalt in a duel. This killing spree upsets the families. Romeo did not want his friend to die on the count of his family’s feud with the Capulets. Mercutio knew that the two families did not get along and tried to stay neutral with the conflict, but because he let his feelings about Tybalt get in the way, he unfortunately paid for it with his

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Mercutios relationship with Romeo is a foil because their beliefs are extremely controversial with each other's. Fates, dreams and love are few of the thoughts where they disagree, and there opinions on each matter were shown a myriad throughout the play , this is shown to be true when Romeo states, "In bed asleep, while they do dreams come true" (1.4, lns 52). This quote supports my answer because Romeo is stating that your dream are prophecies where Mercutio, "...nothing but fantasy" (1.4, lns 98) believes that they mean nothing and are just childish thought. Another quote from the text that supports my answer is between Romeo and Mercutio, "And, to sink in it, should you burden love- too great oppression for a tender thing" (1.4, lns 23-24)

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Mercutio is making light of Romeo’s deep depressing love for Rosaline, he’s mocking love and making it a joke. This creates an emphasis on Romeo’s utter affixation with love. Mercutio’s playfulness and ability to make a serious subject humorous and reasonable bring out the deep, dark, and depressing side of Romeo, who is completely the opposite when it comes to love. Romeo does not see love as a joke and we see him fall into a depression, Mercutio only makes this sadness more apparent as he talks so jokingly of love. Shakespeare uses Mercutio to lighten Romeo’s depression and make it more

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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.

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In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet there are many examples of character foils. An example Is Romeo and his obnoxious friend Mercutio. These two characters are the complete opposite, and bring out the best and the worst of each other. Mercutio often makes fun of Romeo for falling in love so easily. When Romeo describes his love for Rosaline, Mercutio laughs and says “if love be rough with you, be rough with love; prick love for pricking you, and you best love down”(1.4.27-28).

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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.

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"Love is poison. A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the same." - George R. Martin. This quote reflects the idea that when love consumes a person's personality, it can be their downfall. Although love can sometimes improve a person's life, it can also lead to their destruction.

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Once Tybalt punctures Mercutio with his sword right under Romeo’s arm Mercutio expires and is no longer alive. Romeo is soon angered by the death of Mercutio because he does not want Mercutio to die alone, so he speaks this “Now, Tybalt takes the “villain” back again that late thou gavest me, for Mercutio’s soul but is a little way above our heads, staying for thine to keep him company. Either thou or I, or both, must go with him” (act 3, scene 1, lines 87-91). Romeo is saying the Tybalt should not be alive because he is the one the stabbed Mercutio during the fight so he should get it done back to him because you can’t do anything to others that you don’t want done to you. Romeo thinks Mercutio should not go to heaven, that Romeo should fight until one or the other is dead because it is not fair that he has to go by himself.

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667 Words | 3 Pages

He was killed by Tybalt but if Romeo had not gotten in the way then Mercutio would not have had a chance to stab him. Romeo had too much trust in his cousin that he did not think he would take advantage of Mercutio's position. Romeo did not look into the past and realized that the hate between the families would not simply disappear when he got in the way. From this we can learn that with loyalty comes trust that can be exploited and cause death. The death of Mercutio leads Romeo into a rage which ends with Tybalt's death.

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Tybalt challenges Romeo to a duel and he declines the challenge and insists that he won’t fight Tybalt. Mercutio is angered by Romeo’s “cowardice” and takes on Tybalt himself. Romeo wants Mercutio to stop fighting Tybalt so he decides that it’d be a good idea to block his arm in mid combat and Tybalt stabs Mercutio from under Romeo’s arm and Mercutio falls dead after rambling about plagues and a pun or two. Romeo doesn’t realize that it is his own fault that Mercutio died after Mercutio even blamed his wound on him. Romeo lets his emotions decide his actions and becomes enraged and ignores that Tybalt is now his family and fails to see that he was the reason Mercutio was killed.

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1992 Words | 8 Pages

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