Pivotal Act Three

In William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, a pair of star-crossed lovers is pulled away by their families’ rivalry. In the third act, the events and actions of the characters begin to change the outcome of the play. Without the scenes in act three, the play could have a drastically different ending. Romeo getting banished from Verona, Juliet being forced to marry Paris, and Mercutio and Tybalt dying all indicate a turning point in the action of the play.

One of the turning points in the play is when Romeo is banished from Verona. In scene one, Tybalt kills Mercutio under Romeo’s arm. Then, to get revenge, Romeo kills Tybalt. The prince says, “And for that offence/Immediately we do exile him hence.” (III, I, 185-186) . Few people know how bad this punishment actually is, because there are only a few characters who know that Romeo and Juliet are not only in love, but married. If Romeo is banished, he will not be able to see Juliet. Romeo knows this when he says, “’Tis torture, and not mercy. Heaven is here/Where Juliet lives” (III, III, 29-30). If not for this fight, the play would not have ended the way it did. If this fight never broke out between Romeo, Tybalt, and Mercutio, Romeo would not have to leave, and he could stay with Juliet. This means Juliet and Friar Lawrence would have to come up with a different plan to account for the fact that Romeo is still in Verona and cannot take Juliet with him to another city. If a different plan was made, it might not have failed, and resulted in both Romeo and Juliet’s death. Therefore, the exile of Romeo is a huge turning point in the plot of this play.

Almost as influential as scene one, scene four drastically changes the outcome of the play. In scene four, Capulet, his wife, and Paris ...

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...lan to get out of the marriage, which results in death. The death of Tybalt also is the reason why Romeo was banished. The revenge Romeo took on Tybalt caused the prince to banish him from Verona. This punishment is one of the major turning points in action. Since both the marriage and the punishment started when Tybalt died, this scene is one of the most influential scenes on the plot.

It is said that in Shakespeare’s five-act plays, the third is often the most influential on the plot. This remains true in Romeo and Juliet. In act three, Romeo gets banished from Verona, Juliet is forced to marry Paris, and Mercutio and Tybalt die. These scenes put together create a chain of events that result in the death of Romeo and Juliet. Without this act, the outcome of the play could be very different than what it is famously known for: the death of the star-crossed lovers.