Romeo And Juliet Light Analysis

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Recommended: Light and dark imagery romeo and juliet

Mostafa Ahmed
Grade 10
English
Miss. Robinson
Romeo and Juliet Essay
Light and dark imagery, are opposite but very important to the success of many pieces of literature. Shakespeare, a playwright during the Elizabethan era, wrote his play “Romeo and Juliet “, he incorporated light and dark imagery into the play. The role of light and dark imagery is very vital for the play as it allows characters to express their emotions and feelings in a very powerful manner. Light imagery is used in order to convey feelings of love and happiness. On the other hand, dark imagery is used to convey feelings of sadness, depression and concern; however on certain occasions it can be used in a positive manner to benefit the characters specifically Romeo and Juliet.
Light imagery is used consistently in the play to show the feelings of joy and love. During the balcony scene, Romeo is illuminating Juliet by light imagery, which was seen when he said “the brightness of her cheeks would shame those stars.” Here, light imagery was used to show Romeo’s strong feelings of love towards Juliet. Romeo does this by comparing and contrasting Juliet’s beauty to the stars, even claiming that they are brighter. This shows Romeo’s feelings of love towards Juliet because he is putting her on a higher pedestal than stars, which shine and illuminate the night sky by their beauty. In turn, Juliet also compares her love to Romeo with light in order to show how strong her emotions and feelings are towards Romeo. This is visible when Juliet says “come Romeo come thou day in night/ for thou wilt lie upon the wings of night/ white than new snow on a raven’s back.” (3.2.17-19). This metaphor is using light imagery to describe how powerful Juliet’s ...

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...tions such as sadness and sorrow within the character but he also uses dark imagery in a positive way which would benefit both Romeo and Juliet.
In conclusion, Shakespeare uses light imagery to create positive emotions and feelings within the characters such as love, joy and happiness. It is also used to show how Romeo and Juliet have a very strong and emotional love bond between each other. On the other hand, Shakespeare uses dark imagery to create negative emotions within the character such as grief, sorrow and sadness but he also uses it for positive means. Utilizing these two types of imagery, light and dark, Shakespeare manages to create deep and emotional characters. Furthermore, he was able to construct a wide and clear variety of emotions and feeling between the different characters especially the strong emotional bond between Romeo and Juliet.

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