Death And Violence In Romeo And Juliet By William Shakespeare

Death And Violence In Romeo And Juliet By William Shakespeare

Romeo And Juliet is quite possibly the most famous love story of all

time. It has many concurrent themes running throughout the course of

the entire story and one that is very prevalent is that of death and

violence, the violence being both verbal and physical. Shakespeare

merged the themes of death and violence with those of passion, love,

and affection, which contrast beautifully with the more macabre themes

to create a distinctive mood and atmosphere. In this essay I will be

showing exactly how Shakespeare portrayed the said issues of death and

violence in Romeo And Juliet.

Violence often plays a part in media, being shown more and more on

film and television. Nowadays we have trailers or commercials to tell

the prospective viewer of the details of what will happen in what they

are watching. In Shakespeare's time they had prologues at the

beginning of the plays. Prologues were an outline of the story of the

play and the prologue of Romeo and Juliet was no different. It

instantly shows how death and violence was going to be a major aspect

of the play. The lines " From ancient grudge break to new mutiny /

civil blood makes civil hands unclean", show instantaneously how there

has been a grievance between some people who are quite obviously of

the nobility and how the grievance has turned violent and blood is

being shed. The fact that they are of the nobility has more of an

impact as a petty feud like the one the families have would normally

be between families of a lower order or social standing.

Progressing to the opening scene, we get yet more hints that these two

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...mber to see a dead Romeo

by her side and, knowing that she cant live without him plunges his

dagger into her chest. The relevance being that two people in a crypt

are almost destined to stay there together, forever. Although extreme

this was exactly what both Romeo and Juliet wanted. Shakespeare is

brilliant in that for every light hearted scene, he used tension or

death and violence to lower the tone slightly and keep people

interested.

Death and violence was portrayed excellently throughout Romeo and

Juliet but I feel the last scene was the strongest. It was portrayed

not as it appears, but as a sentiment between two lovers that, whilst

being sad, also helps to break down all the rest of this issues in the

play by showing that after all the problems between families, Romeo

and Juliet are now perfectly peaceful.