The Tragedy Of Romeo And Juliet

Critique on The Tragedy of Romeo & Juliet

In William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Romeo & Juliet, written in the 1500s, two people of rival families fall in love with one another. Romeo would fall in love with his family’s enemy’s daughter, Juliet, and keep the relationship a secret to all except the Friar, and Juliet’s nurse. Meeting on the streets, Tybalt gets in battle with Mercutio, who gets killed and in turn, Romeo kills Tybalt over his anguish for his cousin’s death. The prince exiles Romeo from Verona as a result of this, and Juliet soon fakes death. This causes Romeo to believe she had really died and commit suicide. Juliet then commits suicide as well. In his play, Shakespeare demonstrates how teenagers could make choices not in their best interest with a lot of ironic examples involved.

For example, he demonstrates situational irony by Juliet’s attempt of making everyone believe she was dead so she could be with Romeo, but Romeo ends up getting fooled as well and kills himself to be with her. Juliet tried fooling everyone, but ended up only fooling Romeo. Dramatic irony is demonstrated by the audience knowing of Romeo and Juliet’s secret marriage. The audience knows, but no one else does except the Friar, Juliet’s nurse, and the secret couple themselves. Finally, he demonstrates verbal irony through the end of the play, the Friar tells Juliet what would happen but the complete opposite happens. The Friar tells of the news being delivered to Romeo and him kissing her to awaken her after her body is left alone in the church, then Romeo gets news from his cousin that she had died and he kills himself as a result. Shakespeare kept the audience’s interest with a lot of ironic