Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Many people consider a tragedy to be a play or story, which includes

an element of death and disaster, the play Romeo and Juliet fits into

this category. With their fate already mapped out, Shakespeare ends

the secret love affair of Romeo and Juliet with their deaths. The

tragedy has a didactic purpose; Shakespeare wants the audience to

learn how to avoid making the same mistakes as the characters.

Shakespeare cleverly begins the play with a prologue, which sets the

scene for the rest of the play. The prologue tells us about an

“ancient grudge” between two families and how only the deaths of

“star-crossed lovers”, one from each enemy, could end the feud. This

brief revelation of the plot of the play allows the audience to

concentrate on how and what led to the two lovers deaths instead of a

surprise ending with death. The fact that the prologue is written as a

sonnet emphasises the theme of love. A sonnet typically uses very

elaborate and poetic language and this can be seen in the prologue,

such as “their death-marked love”. However this also creates a theme

of violence and death, which carries on throughout the rest of the

play by mentioning “civil blood makes civil hands unclean” and “their

parents rage”, it sets the scene for the rest of the play.

The opening scene of the play is in complete contrast to the prologue.

We go from a sonnet describing love in very elaborate and poetic

language to the coarse and sexual language of two servants. This

extreme contrast grabs the attention and interest of the audience

straight away. The scene begins with two servants of the Capulet’s

basically “egging each other on” to fight the enemy. Sampson, the

seemingly more hot headed of the two, brags about being “in choler”

and that he will “draw” his sword in order to defend the Capulet’s.

Gregory, on the other hand, is much more sensible and in response to

Sampson’s claimed bravery states that “to move is to stir, and to be