This mask belongs to the minor character Mercutio; consequently, its main colors are orange, brown, and green because he is flamboyant, reliable, and young. To begin with, the color orange represents Mercutio’s most recognizable and dominant trait: flamboyance. It is exhibited most in his Queen Mab monologue, “Oh, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you./She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes/In shape no bigger than an agate stone/On the forefinger of an alderman/Drawn with a team of little atomies...And in this state she gallops night by night/Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love...This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,/That presses them and learns then first to bear,/Making them women of good carriage,”(Act I, Scene 4, lines 53-57, 70-71, 92-94). …show more content…
Mercutio’s monologue is where he exerts his flamboyant and energetic personality.
Throughout the speech, he frequently adds a sort of flare to the way he speaks; for example, he uses over ten lines(in the text)to simply describe the size of Queen Mab. The manner in which he speaks is loud, confident, and stylish; therefore, he attracts attention. He also manages to subtly mock Romeo when speaking about how those who are in love dream of love; this is to add a comedic flare, even though that is what he is. Mercutio’s entertainer like personality is due to the fact that he is amusing. In this tragic and serious play, he is the obnoxious character that breaks the seriousness for a while with a witty remark.It also explains why he is the dramatic foil to Romeo. This goes along with his flamboyant attitude. Nevertheless, he is also vulgar at times, which adds to his loud personality. Now, brown represents Earth and reliability, and Mercutio, in his own way, represents
both. For instance, “Thou talk’st of nothing. True, I talk of dreams;/which are the children of an idle brain,/Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,”(Act I, Scene 4, lines 96-98). Unlike Romeo, who has faith in astrology and dreams, Mercutio is cynical and does not believe. He is a grounded person and believes in what happens on Earth, not what occurs in the sky, like Romeo. This grounded personality is what makes him represent Earth, but is also what makes him reliable. He is more realistic than his friend and looks more to cold, hard facts. His realism also allows him to give helpful advice, making him a reliable friend. Finally, the color green represents Mercutio’s youth, but not in the sense of age, but of maturity. His true colors show when he speaks about Rosaline, in order to tantalize Romeo. He declares, “I conjure thee by Rosaline’s bright eyes,/By her high forehead and her scarlet lip,/By her fine foot, straight leg, and quivering thigh,/And the demesnes that there adjacent lie,”(Act I, Scene 4, lines 17-20). In this scene, Mercutio begins talking about Rosaline in a very explicit manner in order to rile Romeo and make him appear. Specifically, his mention of Rosaline’s feminine parts is immature. This proves his juvenile sense of humor, showing that he is young and inexperienced. In this provincial time, women were not valued, but only young boys spoke about women in such a way. All-in-all, Mercutio’s mask is meant to visually display Mercutio’s personality through color; thus, his mask is orange, brown, and green because he is the resident comic relief, reliable, and a youth.
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
You wouldn’t believe everything that's been going for the past two weeks. Remember Betty Parris? She fell into a “sickness” but I heard that there's something darker to the story… witchcraft. . Eventually she woke up and started screaming some nonsense about wanting her mother, who’s been dead for what feels like ages now. That's how you know something sinister is afoot. The only thing that could calm her down was Rebecca Nurse. I don’t know about you, but I think that's pretty suspicious that out of all the people in town, only Goody Nurse could get some sense into the child. Rumor has it that she was caught flying over the Ingersoll’s barn the just a few nights ago. That's just the beginning of it..
Mercutio is a confusing character. He rarely seems to hate anybody yet he is almost always “Hot-headed;” getting into fights and losing his patience towards others.
(CLOSING STATEMENTS) With his audacious nature, Romeo kills Tybalt in a challenge and later kills himself, which causes significant problems in the plot. Unfortunately, as a result of Romeo’s actions, Juliet stabs herself with his dagger because she no longer wants to live in a world without him. Along with Romeo, Mercutio is another character who makes poor decisions based on his overdramatic personality and tendency to disagree with Benvolio's way of thinking. These two choices cause characters around Mercutio to not take him seriously, and for this reason, he later dies in the play. Although Mercutio’s actions impact the storyline, Friar Laurence’s choices primarily cause the play to become such a tragedy. For instance, his poor decisions to marry Romeo and Juliet and flee Juliet’s tomb eventually cause the couple’s love for one another to become inseparable, and they take their lives at the end of the plot. (CLINCHER) As the readers delve deeper into Romeo and Juliet and unravel what went wrong, they will begin to realize that the decisions made by the characters created catastrophic
The most famous foil character in ''Romeo and Juliet'' is Mercutio. He is known for his sharp wit and quick, often ribald, humor and is considered a foil to Romeo. He lacks Romeo's effusive romance, his adoration and almost courtly approach to the idea of love. He often urges Romeo to just find a woman to sleep with and stop worrying about the ephemeral, yet all consuming, love Romeo is desperate to achieve. Mercutio warns Romeo to be skeptical of love and not to rush ahead, but Romeo is all rush, no
Shakespeare strongly establishes Mercutio’s desire to prove himself as strong through his unwillingness to back down, his carelessness to danger, and his need to be seen. Shakespeare displays Mercutio as a stubborn character when he refuses to leave even when Benvolio urges him to because the conversation was becoming heated. This is best shown when Mercutio says “I will not budge for no man’s pleasure, I.” (1, 1, 58) He uses his persistence to prove himself as though he is stronger than all of the Capulets who were getting angry. Even when the sense to leave the scene is presented by Benvolio, Mercutio abandons his better thinking and stands his ground.
Mercutio is one of the most unique characters in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. His language is always powerful and imaginative. The Nurse is a very important character in the play because as her title suggests, she is. a Nurse for the Capulet family. She is also a surrogate mother to Juliet.
Many a time this supports Romeo, as Romeo is the passionate one and always in love. Whilst Mercutio is often the one saying love is “idiotic” or “a waste of time” (paraphrased 1.4). He often times uses taunts or common sense to get information out of Romeo, “If love be rough with you, be rough with love;/Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down./Give me a case to put my visage in:/A visor for a visor! what care I/What curious eye doth quote deformities?/Here are the beetle brows shall blush for me.” (1.4). As well as “The ape is dead, and I must conjure him./I conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes,/By her high forehead and her scarlet lip,/By her fine foot, straight leg and quivering thigh/And the demesnes that there adjacent lie,/That in thy likeness thou appear to us!” (2.1). In the beginning quote Romeo is down and about about how his want to be lover, Rosalind, and her disdain toward him and her promise of chastity. Naturally, Mercutio uses a classic line of “Get over her with other women!” Which then goes on to reveal Romeo’s stubbornness in listening to advice of others and his inability to stop loving. (Which is revealed to be futile). The second line is referring to his taunting of Romeo that makes the Romeo, as well as the reader, begin to understand the statement “revealed to be
Because he is Romeo’s friend, he stands on the Montague’s side. In fact, Mercutio simply appears in four scenes in Romeo and Juliet, in other words, he is not the main character in the play. Nevertheless, I think he is an attractive and memorable character in the play. Actually, Mercutio’s name is related to the word “mercurial,” meaning “having an unpredictable and fast changing mood,” an accurate description of Mercutio’s personality. Moreover, he also plays a vital
This reasonably light opening contrasts harshly with the sinister end of the scene. The pace of the scene changes rapidly with the entrance of the Capulets. There is a sense of tension between Mercutio and Tybalt from the moment that the dialogue begins, and although Mercutio is still playing the comic character, his words are layered with malice, which becomes apparent when Tybalt accuses him of consorting with Romeo. Mercutio loses patience and draws his sword to fight. Al...
Mercutio has always had an anti-romantic mentality, and shows no restraint in voicing his opinion and chastising others for their beliefs. Mercutio uses poetry to mock Romeo for his vision of love in Act II, “Romeo, Humors! Madman! Passion! Lover! Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh, speak but one rhyme and I am satisfied,” (II.1.7-9). He obviously has a very cynical side and does not mind showing it to people, no matter how those people react to him. On the other hand, Romeo has always had a very ardent sense of love. Romeo shows deep understanding of his love for Rosaline by exclaiming, "Did
...yalty. The line said by Mercutio: “O calm, dishonourable, vile submission! Alla stoccata carries it away (He draws) Tybalt, you ratcatcher, will you walk” The use of Descriptive triplet in the words ‘vile,’ ‘dishonourable’ and ‘submission’ all have negative connotations which emphasises Mercutio’s anger with Romeo because he won’t defend for himself, thinking Romeo is submissive and cowardly in not wanting to fight.. Mercutio had paid the ultimate price of love, to protect Romeo’s honour and loyalty, his life. Mercutio’s tone of bitterness emphasises his anger with the conflict with the two families taking his life cursing them both (families): “I am hurt. A plague a’ both house! I am sped. Is he gone and hath nothing.”
Humor can be found to be a virtue and a vice; however, in the grimmest situations humor may allow the gravity to turn into glee and gayness. Mercutio’s greatest aspect is his sense of humor. Which he doesn’t fail to display even in the most inappropriate moments. An instance of such portrayal is during the scene where Romeo has ditched Benvolio and Mercutio in pursuit of Juliet, in the Capulet’s garden. In which Mercutio comically says, “Nay, I’ll conjure too. / Romeo! Humors! Madman! Passion! Lover!” (II.i.7-8). This moment can be considered much graver than Mercutio depicts it to be which makes this scene much more like comic relief than a serious scene. The fact that there are Montague’s in Capulet’s territory is serious enough and can cause some major consequences for the perpetrators if caught. And now to betray their positio...
Mercutio, though a minor character, had and enormous impact on the outcome of the play. Before the Capulet Ball, Romeo had been debating whether to go or not. Mercutio persuaded him to go by giving a big speech to him about a dream he had. This makes him partially responsible because the Ball is where Romeo first met Juliet. Mercutio also caused Romeo to be banished from Verona. Mercutio got in a fight with Tybalt and ended up dead. His death enraged Romeo enough to make him kill Tybalt in revenge. When the Prince saw what happened, he sent Romeo into exile. Romeo's banishment to Mantua made it near impossible for Romeo and Juliet to see each other. Mercutio was to blame, though only partially for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet.
He doesn’t mention any other aspect of a women to Romeo so therefore we can infer he doesn’t care about and therefore associate anything else with love( only the parts he finds sexual). This idea can also be proven when Mercutio states “Nay, I’ll conjure too! Romeo! Humours, madman, passion, lover! Use of the noun “madman” shows Mercutio thinks it’s mad how anyone can love like Romeo. This is likely because he doesn’t understand true love himself as the play never mentions him having had a partner deeper than for sex. Therefore love is just sexual for him as that is the only concept of love he knows . This factor could make the audience feel sympathy for Mercutio as they may feel bad for someone who has never felt love as it is supposedly such a powerful thing, which they learn from Romeo’s