How Does Shakespeare Use Figurative Language In Romeo And Juliet

Two star-crossed lovers who once caused so much commotion, brought peace to the rivaling families, with their passing. Romeo and Juliet is a tragic play written by William Shakespeare. The Capulet and Montague families have been rivals for years upon years. The quarrel was so big and continuous that it killed multiple people including the star-crossed lovers. In the end what brings the families together would be the death of their children. The reasoning for the death is because Juliet's parents are trying to force her into marrying a guy called Paris even though she only wanted Romeo but they were forbidden from being together. In the play Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare effectively utilizes the overall theme brutality of love using varieties of

He uses similes and metaphors to compare two different things. Both figurative language have similar aspects but convey two different functions. The author explains “It is too rash, too unadivis’d, too sudden, too like the lightning, which doth cease to be ere one can say it lightens.”(2.2.122-126) Shakespeare uses a simile to compare Romeo and Juliet's love promise to lightning because it’s so quick like how lightning is quick then it’s gone. Shakespeare compares Juliet's attachment to Romeo to him being a bird on a chain barely being able to move “...I would have thee gone; and yet no farther than a wanton’s bird, that lets it hop a little from her hand…”(2.2.189-191) Shakespeare uses a metaphor so Juliet can express her feelings about Romeo how she wishes he could stay to her. By comparing her to a bird kept on a chain only being able to hop a little from her hand. It shows brutality of love because what she thinks she's just loving him, but she is kind of taking away his freedom in a way which is a bit selfish. Shakespeare not only uses similes and metaphors to convey the theme brutality of love as well as