Analyzing Act 3 Scene 1 of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

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Analyzing Act 3 Scene 1 of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

Probably the most prominent and widely-studied text in GCSE English,

Romeo and Juliet was written by William Shakespeare relatively early

in his literary career, in the late sixteenth century. During much of

the twentieth century, critics tended to belittle this play in

comparison to the four great tragedies that Shakespeare wrote in the

first decade of the seventeenth century (Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth,

and Othello). Compared to Shakespeare's more mature plays, Romeo and

Juliet appeared to lack the psychological depth and structural

complexity of his later tragedies. But over the last few decades,

scholars and critics have altered their opinions, effectively raising

the status of this play amongst Shakespeare's works, by judging Romeo

and Juliet as a work of art in its own right.

Viewed from this fresh perspective, Shakespeare's tragic drama of the

star-crossed lovers is seen to be an extraordinary work. Indeed, Romeo

and Juliet was an experimental stage piece at the time of its

composition, featuring several fundamental changes from long-standing

practices. However, it is these innovative aspects of the play that

emphasize the importance of its principal themes. These include the

antithesis between love and hate, the correlative use of a light/dark

polarity, the handling of time (as both theme and as structural

element), and the influential status given to fortune and its

expression in the dreams, omens and premonitions that foretell its

tragic conclusion.

This essay will dwell into the mind of the great playwright,

investigating the ideas, and analysing the ...

... middle of paper ...

... if someone had acted in just

a slightly different manner or arrived just a moment earlier/later.

The results of all these events can be blamed directly on fate.

In the end, this action packed scene delivers a punch because it is

the first instance where we are reminded of the tragedy of the young

star-crossed lovers. The banishment of Romeo ensures that Romeo will

return to Verona to get Juliet, and by doing this, he will fulfil the

Prince's prophecy of payment by blood. When Mercutio shouts out "a

plague a' both your houses", the audience is reminded again that all

the events in the play will lead to its inevitable conclusion, when

the death of Romeo and Juliet will cause grief and misery to both the

houses, and where the joint mourning helps to unite both the families,

and acts as a fitting conclusion to the play.

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