Facets of a character help reveal the character’s inner self along with what they believe should happen. Within Romeo and Juliet, there are various uses of facets to help the audience learn things about different sets of characters and their views on society. In the play “Romeo and Juliet” Shakespeare helps express the use of a conversation between Mercutio and Benvolio to reveal different sets of facets of the character Mercutio through the uses of similes, imagery, and personification to help portray this. While using these, it also allows the character to express themselves. Shakespeare helps develop the facets of Mercutio in the play by strategically using the literary device, imagery. The use of imagery in this play helps the audience comprehend how the characters view and see different points of an argument in society. One way the author expresses this use of imagery is through Mercutio saying, “With another, for trying his new shoes with old ribbon? And yet thou wilt tutor me from quarreling?” (30-32). This examples helps the audience understand through the use of vision of how this character states that while he is doing something and being …show more content…
The use of personification also allows Shakespeare to explore more facets of Mercutio. One piece of evidence pulled from the passage allows the audience to see this and a viewpoint of society with Mercutio stating, “What eye but such an eye would spy out such a quarrel?” (22-23). This piece of text allows the audience to view into Mercutio’s view point of not being searched through the eyes of another which makes the world think differently with eyes not made for looking for quarrel/drama, it is in fact the person who looks for quarrels not the eyes itself. This then informs the reader to understand that some people’s viewpoints are vastly different when some people look for drama and some try not to want it at
He is often up and happy, which immediately turns to serious brooding. The best example of this comes at his death. He has been stabbed through by Tybalt’s cruel blade and the killer has flown. All his fellows gather around laughing when Mercutio yells that he is injured. After sending for a surgeon he stumbles about saying, “No, ‘tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but ‘tis enough, twill serve: ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man. I am peppered I warrant for this world. A plague o’ both your houses! Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat to scratch a man to death” (III.i.94-99). In this quote Mercutio seems to go from cracking jokes and making puns to all seriousness, screaming plague upon the quarrel between the two houses. This was very serious considering the plague was running rampant at that time, killing thousands of people. To wish plague on someone is to wish the most feared thing of their age on them and their family. This is not the only example of such emotional instability as he often ranges from very high to very low, creating quite the dramatic and loud character. Mercutio’s characteristics are wide and varied, making him into an extremely complex, extremely prominent character. Shakespeare places this persona of varying emotions who may not be thinking exactly what he seems to be into the story of Romeo and Juliet, a stage full of such
Mercutio and the Nurse in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Throughout the whole of Romeo & Juliet there is a strong comparison. between Mercutio & the nurse. Neither are a part of either family, but they get drawn into this family brawl.
tries to pick a fight. For example, in Act 3 scene 1 when he stabs
“joker” of the play. This is evident in all of the scenes he is in.
== = == With these words Mercutio is attempting to entice Romeo into a playful and social mood and this gives us an insight into Mercutio's personality- good humoured, witty and charismatic. I think that Mercutio's main role in the play emphasises these traits
Many would perceive madness and corruption to play the most influential role in Hamlet. However, it could be argued that the central theme in the tragedy is Shakespeare's presentation of actors and acting and the way it acts as a framework on which madness and corruption are built. Shakespeare manifests the theme of actors and acting in the disassembly of his characters, the façades that the individuals assume and the presentation of the `play within a play'. This intertwined pretence allows certain characters to manipulate the actions and thoughts of others. For this reason, it could be perceived that Shakespeare views the `Elsinorean' tragedy as one great puppet show, "I could see the puppets dallying".
Over the last thirty years, Shakespeare criticism has demonstrated a growing awareness of the self-reflexive or metadramatic elements in his works. Lionel Abel’s 1963 study, Metatheatre: A New View of Dramatic Form, provided perhaps the first significant analysis of the ways in which Shakespeare thematizes theatricality, in the broadest sense of the term, in his tragedies, comedies, and histories. In his discussion of Hamlet, he makes the observation—perhaps a bit commonplace and obvious to us thirty years later—that the famous “play within a play” is only the most blatant example of self-conscious technique found throughout the tragedy: once we begin to look closely, we notice that nearly “every important character acts at some moment like a playwright, employing a playwright’s consciousness of drama to impose a certain posture or attitude on another” (46). Elsewhere in his book, Abel argues implicitly that Shakespeare, though he often used metadramatic techniques more in the interest of developing character than creating “an event,” the way later playwrights do, nevertheless composed plays which “are theatre pieces about life seen as already theatricalized” (60). In making such statements, Abel laid the groundwork for a number of subsequent studies, from Thomas F. Van Laan’s Role-Playing in Shakespeare, which appeared in 1978, to Judd D. Hubert’s more recent Metatheatre: The Example of Shakespeare.
The Role of Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet In William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, each character plays a specific role in driving the action forward and shaping the play's theme. One secondary character, Mercutio, is essential to the play. Mercutio is the Prince's kinsman, but more importantly, he is Romeo's friend and confidant. Mercutio's concern is always for Romeo and for peace between the two families, the Capulets and the Montagues. Mercutio is the first to see that Romeo is deeply in love.
In Fools of Time: Studies in Shakespearean Tragedy, Northrop Frye shows how the playwright uses imagery to reinforce the theme:
...f those festive comedies. And that is an effective way to bring to people’s awareness of topics appearing in the play with deeper meaning, such as justice, humanity, power and law, etc. Furthermore, though the problems raised and discussed by the play have a specific social context, the topics mentioned above, however, are long-living, which must be one of the reasons why Shakespeare’s plays are the top among all the classical and remain popular throughout centuries. And the problem plays of his, such as Measure for Measure, not only amuse us by the humor in them, but also they trigger us to think by their depth as well as wisdom. (2379 words)
“Perhaps it's because Shakespeare himself was an actor that he uses the metaphor of the actor and of the theater so often in his plays. Often when a character is at the peak of his emotional problems he compares himself with an actor: "struts and frets his hour upon the stage." This has a wonderful resonance for an audience...” Thus, it is clear that Hamlet is a play that implicates itself within the paradigm of “play” and the various acts of branching out thereof. These would include the notion of “play” itself, the centrality of “play” within the play, the simultaneous power of the ‘play’ and the threat it generates and the thin line of seperation between the ‘play’ within the play & the play and the play & reality. As frustrating and confusing as the above would sound, this particular phase of Hamlet has intrigued and fascinated literary critics, scholars, theatre-goers, drama critics, reviewers and the plebeian alike.
Shakespeare uses much juxtaposition to personify his characters. This helps to give the audience a greater understanding of the relationships of the characters both to themselves and to other characters in the play.
In William Shakespeare's Othello, the use of imagery and metaphors is significant in conveying meaning as it helps to establish the dramatic atmosphere of the play and reinforce the main themes. Through this, the audience is able to grasp a better understanding of the play.
In the world of the Tempest, we have moved beyond tragedy. In this world Hamlet and Ophelia are happily united, the Ghost comes to life again and is reconciled with his brother, the old antagonisms are healed. Lear learns to lessen his demands on the world and to accept it with all its threats to his own ego. This is not a sentimental vision, an easily achieved resolution. It takes time--in this case sixteen years--and a measure of faith in the human community that one is prepared to hold onto in the face of urgent personal demands. This play seems to be saying that theatrical art, the magic of Prospero, can achieve what is not possible in the world of Milan, where everyone must always be on guard, because it's a Machiavellian world ruled by the realities of power and injury and there is no Ariel to serve us with the power of illusions.
In the world of the Tempest, we have moved beyond tragedy. In this world Hamlet and Ophelia are happily united, the Ghost comes to life again and is reconciled with his brother, the old antagonisms are healed. Lear learns to lessen his demands on the world and to accept it with all its threats to his own ego. This is not a sentimental vision, an easily achieved resolution. It takes time--in this case sixteen years--and a measure of faith in the human community that one is prepared to hold onto in the face of urgent personal demands. This play seems to be saying that theatrical art, the magic of Prospero, can achieve what is not possible in the world of Milan, where everyone must always be on guard, because it's a Machiavellian world ruled by the realities of power and injury and there is no Ariel to serve us with the power of illusions.