Importance of Act 1 Scene 5 in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

1473 Words3 Pages

Importance of Act 1 Scene 5 in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet Act 1 Scene 5 is very important to the plot of Shakespeare's play, Romeo and Juliet. It is in this scene that the son of the Montague family, Romeo and the daughter of the Capulet family, Juliet, meet and fall in love and the tragedy of the play takes form. For years the families of Capulet and Montague had been fighting, they all lived in Verona. The Prince of the town was tired of all the street fighting between the two that he enforced a new law. This law would stop the fighting; if anyone were to be caught they would have to face the ultimate punishment, death. The start of the play sees Romeo very depressed, he is in this state because he thinks that he is in love with Rosaline, however this love is unreturned. This is because she has devoted her life to God, Romeo compares her to the Goddess of Chastity but she is even more committed as the Goddess was once seduced, but Rosaline will not be. Later on Romeo, Mercutio and Benvolio (friends of Romeo) hear about a party held by Capulet, this party is a masked ball and so they dress up. This party is for Juliet who is to wed Paris, a relative of the Prince. It is in this part of the play that we see the pair of "star-cross'd lovers" meet. When they catch sight of each other they both feel something, which they never felt before, it was love at first sight. Romeo is determined to meet with Juliet once she stops dancing, they both want to know who each other are. This is because they are in love with each other, a new feeling to both of them; this makes them very curious to know each other's identity. The audience's response to this deadly but exciting love would be that they are excited themselves, the audience will know who are underneath the masks but the characters themselves don't. This makes it interesting for us the audience, as we know the families hate

Open Document