The Conflict in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet

The Conflict in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet

William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is set in the north Italian

town of Verona. At this time had a very structured social hierarchy.

The men always came above the women and it was a very feudal system.

In Verona at this time the public wore very bright clothes. This is

shown in some of the later film adaptations of the play. Romeo and

Juliet is a tragic play so a lot of the scenes contain conflict. Romeo

is from the Montague family and Juliet from the Capulet. These two

families’s hated each other. So when Romeo and Juliet fall deeply in

love there is obviously going to be a lot of conflict in the play.

Straight away Shakespeare opens the plat with dramatic conflict. Two

servants of both the rival families start a verbal brawl. Two of the

higher members of the families draw swords on each other and try to

settle the dispute. Prince Escalus, the leader of Verona says to the

two families that if any of them fight again then they will be killed.

Shakespeare uses this scene as the first scene of the play as it grips

the audience straight away and makes the reader want to carry on

reading or the viewer of the play to carry on watching. It also shows

the contrast in the play, there is a mixture of people, for example:

Tybalt and Benvolio. Benvolio try’s to hold the peace where as Tybalt

is out to fight and hates peace.

Act three scene one is the beginning of the end. By this time Romeo

and Juliet have met, fallen in love, and got married. In this scene we

see another contrast. Mercutio who is a very easy going person fights

tybalt who is a dark, foul tempered, peace hating character. Mercutio

puts up a good fight but ends up getting killed by Tybalt in their

sword brawl. In his anger Romeo goes after Tybalt and kills him. Romeo

is then banished from Verona. This starts a chain of events, which