William Shakespeare's Use of Death to Create Tension in Romeo and Juliet

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William Shakespeare's Use of Death to Create Tension in Romeo and Juliet This essay is about how the deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt add tension in Act 3 scene 1 in 'Romeo and Juliet' and also how the deaths affect the audience watching. In the scenes before Act 3 scene 1 the audience will of seen that there are two rival families, the Capulet family and the Montague family but then Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet fall madly in love at a ball held at the Capulet's house and they get secretly married knowing that their families would be furious if they ever found out about their love and this carried on into the beginning of Act 3 scene 1 as Romeo is a part of the family with which his wife's family is in a feud with. I will be using two film versions to consider the effects on the audience. The two film versions are by two different directors, Zeffirelli version which was made in 1968 and the Baz Luhrmann version made in 1997. In Act 3 scene 1 both films use settings, costumes, music and lighting in different ways to show important moments in the scene. In the Zeffirelli version it is all set in 13th century Italy and all the buildings are made of stone type material. The buildings are placed in such a way that there is a large courtyard which is where the fight begins and where Mercutio dies. The costumes are all very well tailored and look very expensive for the time that it is set in and one family has dark coloured clothes on and the other has bright orange clothes which shows the family they support or belong to. One good way of adding tension to the scene is by adding music. In the Zeffirelli version there isn't any music at the beginning of the scene but a tiny bit of music when Mercutio dies it picks up then just stops. The church bells go off when the Prince is talking to the Capulet family and the Montague family when they bring the bodies to

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