Romeo and Juliet begins with an introduction to two families in Renaissance Verona, the Montagues and Capulets, who are embroiled in a feud exacerbated by a long-standing family rivalry. One fateful night, Romeo Montague and his friends secretly attend a party thrown by the Capulets, where Romeo and Juliet Capulet meet and immediately fall in love. After they secretly marry, Romeo is quickly exiled after killing Tybalt Capulet, and Juliet is forced to marry a man of her father’s choosing. The two make a plan to reunite; however, both end up committing suicide at the end due to a misunderstanding. Romeo and Juliet is a Shakespearean tragedy, a play that usually results in the death of the protagonist or significant characters. Shakespearean tragedies …show more content…
Throughout the tragedy Romeo and Juliet, playwright William Shakespeare employs a variety of figurative language, including oxymorons, metaphors, synecdoches, and juxtaposition to develop the internal conflict within Romeo and Juliet, which is caused by the external conflict of the warring families. Playwright William Shakespeare utilizes figurative language to convey the turmoil that evolves both within and between characters as the play progresses. Juxtaposition and metaphor are used in Act 1 to illustrate how the external conflict between the families causes an internal conflict within Juliet as she falls in love with Romeo. After Romeo and Juliet’s initial meeting, Shakespeare employs metaphor and juxtaposition to demonstrate the tension that arises when Juliet discovers she is in love with the son of her family’s foe: “My only love sprung from my only hate!” (1.5, 152).Shakespeare combines the metaphor of “sprung” with the diction of “hate” to illustrate how Juliet feels about falling in love with someone from the wrong family. The metaphor of “sprung” denotes a spring, which is usually buried and hidden underneath the