Romeo And Juliet Violence Analysis

The love between two controversial teens in the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare caused many fights and lead to multiple deaths including their own. Shakespeare uses specific characters to show that the violence in the play is irrational. In particular, the characters Prince Escalus and Lord Capulet are two essential components, in helping Shakespeare prove that. Throughout the play Escalus appears when violence has taken place or is taking place as he is a symbol of the law. Namely, in Act 1 scene 1, when the Montagues and the Capulets, have “disturbed the quiet of [Verona’s] streets” (1.1.93) it causes the Prince to tell them that “[Their] lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace,” (1.1.99), this being an important factor

Shakespeare’s diction throughout the play, plays a key role in the tragedy as it sets a tone and is used to foreshadow. In Act 3 scene 1, Shakespeare uses many words that signify the incentive to fight, by deciding to open the dramatic scene by saying “for now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring” (3.1.4) the words “hot”, and “mad blood” can be interpreted as a foreshadowing, this relates to the irrationality of the violence in the play because it foreshadows the deaths in the scene and the fights that will be started by Mercutio’s unsound anger. Another example is in Act 1 scene 1, the Prince after stopping the fighting between the two families, then scolds them for fighting and tells them to “quench the fire of [their] pernicious rage” (1.1.86) and to “Throw [their] mistempered weapons to the ground” (1.1.89), through the use of the words “pernicious rage”, and “mistempered weapons”, it helps Shakespeare convey that the violence only does more harm to the two families and that they’re fighting for no

To clarify, in Act 1 scene 1, the characters Sampson and Gregory, servants of the Capulets, are talking about fighting when they run into a couple of Montague servants and Sampson says that “[his] naked weapon is out. Quarrel, [he] will back,” this points out that the feud between the Capulets and Montagues is so deep that the servants will even fight. Another example of this is in the first fight, in Act 1 scene 1, when Capulet sees the fighting and asks for his long sword, his wife states “A crutch, a crutch! Why call you for a sword?” (1.1.78-79), and reminds him he is getting older and should not join the quarrel which he does anyway. An alternative claim that could be made is that the violence is for love, but in Act 5 scene 3, when Juliet wakes up to discover Romeo dead, she says “O, happy dagger, This is thy sheath. There rust, and let me die,” (5.3.174-175) while this may seem she is only doing this to join her dead lover, she is only using violence to, indirectly, solve violence by killing herself. The deaths of the two lovers finally brings an end to the long feud but at the expense of the rationality of the violence. While some may think that Romeo and Juliet killing themselves for love and ending the feud is rational violence, it causes all of the other violence in the book to simply be