Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Contrast between romeo and mercutio
Contrast between romeo and mercutio
The Functions of Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The theme of Romeo and Juliet is about a love destined to end in tragedy.
For this assignment, I have chosen Mercutio.
Mercutio, is a witty skeptic, a foil for Romeo. An anti-romantic who mock's Romeo's visions of love and is a friend to our leading hero himself.
In Paragraph one: Mercutio is an anti-romantic character who regards love as an exclusively physical pursuit. Romeo, Humors! Madman! Passion! Lover! Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh, Speak but one rhyme and I am satisfied.
He challenges an opposing concept of love that contrasts sharply with Romeo's idealized notion of a romantic coupling. In which case, Romeo cannot confide to his friend.
In Paragraph two: Though he is first to mock and say that Romeo is a fool for love he
is also a friend to Romeo. He is quick to tease his friend, and it amuses him when a man named Tybalt is wanting to challenge Romeo. Mercutio asks: "And is he such a man to encounter Tybalt?" Out of loyalty, Mercutio takes on the challenge which ultimately ends Mercutio's life. In conclusion, his death marks a distinct turning point for the play as tragedy begins to overwhelm comedy and a different fate for our hero are about to begin.
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
Impatience kills In “The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare, two very young people fall in love but cannot be with each other because of the feud between their families. The feud ends when Romeo and Juliet both kill themselves because of heartbreak over the other. The minor characters Mercutio, Tybalt, and Friar Lawrence serve as foils to Romeo, to help support the theme of patience. While Romeo is impatient and makes rash and hasty decisions, Friar Lawrence is careful and takes time to consider his actions. First Romeo thinks that he is in love with a nun named Rosaline, but a couple hours later he is asking the Friar to marry him to another girl she had just met.
When suddenly Baz Luhrmann nineteen minutes into his work presents a drag Mercutio dressed scandalously in a ridiculous white wig and wearing red lipstick to top it all off, it seems he has no regard for the original Romeo and Juliet. In his portrayal of a character as crucial as Mercutio, Luhrmann crosses the fine line between the individual possessing eloquence and profuse wit Shakespeare creates, and a downright maniac. Before entering the Capulets’ mansion Mercutio’s acclaimed Queen Mab Speech in Act One, Scene Four, displays the aforementioned eloquence and vivid imagination of the character. Specifically, Mercutio claims, “Oh, then I see you’ve been with Queen Mab/...True, I talk of dreams,/Which are the children of an idle brain,/Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,”(I iv 53, 97-99). Anyone with a rational mind does not expect Mercutio to deliver his lines about dreams being merely the result of the anxieties and desires of those who sleep while holding ecstasy and jumping agitatedly. Luhrmann offers an insane Mercutio in his take on Romeo and Juliet and all it achieves is a massacre of the brilliance of the dialogue. The unconventional director stages the exchange to end with Romeo accepting a psychoactive drug inducing him in a euphoric state, then shattering any proceeding potential romantic mood.
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
It is human nature to place blame and point fingers at someone, but it is a lot less common to take responsibility for your own actions. Sometimes, we put ourselves in positions that are detrimental to our lives or well-being. Even though we are responsible, it is likely that we will place the blame elsewhere. In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio found himself with a similar conflict. Tybalt, Juliet's cousin, killed Mercutio during a fight in the town square. It would be easy to say that Tybalt caused Mercutio’s death since it was his sword that killed him, but that is simply false. Mercutio ignored many warnings and continued to antagonize the fight that lead to his death. The character ultimately responsible for Mercutio’s death is
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.
When Romeo is down, Mercutio is there for him, much like. the nurse is who Juliet turns to, when she needs to talk. She chooses to talk to the nurse, rather than her own mother. Mercutio is the one. who gets Romeo over Rosaline, and tells him that there is more to base.
The story of Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy. The two lovers go against their families and against their hate to be together but they don’t think about the consequences, which in the end are devastating.
The excerpt shows how even Mercutio recognizes the feud between the Montagues and Capulets being destructive, and how it is now gotten so out of hand he has been dragged into it. Mercutio tries to open Romeo’s eyes on how if this feud continues there will be a demise for both families; but by Romeo choosing to ignore this advice and killing Tybalt he is setting himself up for his failure/downfall. Thus, Romeo is shown as a tragic hero because his demise is partly his fault and not an accident.
I love people think that Mercutio is responsible for most of the deaths in the famous play Romeo and Juliet people also commonly think that it could be Romeo spot too. In my opinion it was all the fires fault. The fire was doing the right thing at first when Romeo first confronted the fire about Mary and Juliet. The fire turn Romeo down saying that it was a crazy idea. He was right to say that because Romeo was just in love with Rosaline less than 24 hours before that. But unfortunately it doesn't stop there. The fire it's an idea. He thinks they're from you and Juliet get married then maybe the two households. She didn't come together for the power of true love. His idea eventually did work, but under different circumstances. The first is to Romeo to
In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the views of love held by the character Romeo contrast sharply with the views of Mercutio. Romeo's character seems to suffer from a type of manic depression. He is in love with his sadness, quickly enraptured and easily crushed again on a passionate roller coaster of emotion. Mercutio, by contrast is much more practical and level headed. His perceptions are clear and quick, characterized by precise thought and careful evaluation. Romeo, true to his character begins his appearance in the play by wallowing in his depression over Rosaline who does not return his love:
Loyalty to another person can cause people to act without thinking. Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare is a dramatic play about two lovers and the quest for love. Many of the decisions that were made throughout the play were bad decisions and affected Mercutio and Juliet’s outcome greatly. While Mercutio and Juliet both make decisions out of lack of impulse control, Mercutio also makes decisions that are influenced by violence, and Juliet makes decisions that are influenced by suicidal actions.
As life proceeds its slow waltz, and humans live their lives, meeting countless other people in the same predicament of nearing an unavoidable end. In this cycle of monotony and conversation there can be people found that are different. Those who are never bothered by the burdens of death and monotony, and hurry through life to greet death as a lost friend they had encountered many times on their sprees of invincibility. From the handful of people who resemble these characteristics, one can be found in the William Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet. In which the zany character to be found is Mercutio, who is of neither Montague nor Capulet but falls to the hands of Capulet in the defense of Romeo of Montague in a fight of a childish altercation. In which even at his fall in Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare still displays his distinct characteristics that greatly define him such as: humor and impulsiveness.
Mercutio is the Prince’s kinsman and Romeo’s close friend, he’s not a Capulet nor a Montague and is one of the few characters that can mingle with both households. In this scene, Mercutio, unlike Romeo, doesn’t think that dreams can be warnings and explains that dreams are the outcome of the stress and eagerness of those that sleep. Because Mercutio isn’t a Capulet or Montague, he’s invited to the Capulet’s party while Benvolio
Mercutio also acts like a foil to the romantic, idealistic part of Romeo. He sees love as something physical unlike Romeo who thinks love is an emotion. A clear example of Mercutio being a foil to Romeo is when Romeo attends the party at the request of Benvolio, who encourages Romeo to forget about Rosaline and find someone new. Before the party, Romeo tells his friends about the dream he had. While Romeo believes in his