Similes And Oxymorons In Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet

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Literary devices are incorporated in almost every novel and play for the soul purpose of providing the reader with a greater knowledge of what is going on. Shakespeare skillfully includes these devices in his plays to help characterize his characters and explain their feelings.
In Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”, both similes and oxymorons are used throughout the story to enhance the subject that is being talked about as well as helping the reader understand the story better.
To begin, Shakespeare includes many similes and personification to help the reader understand the feelings of each character. To elaborate, while Romeo describes his troubled love life to Mercutio, he complains, “Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, Too rude, too …show more content…

, In particular, after Juliet hears the astonishing news that her dear Romeo has been banished, she wails, “O serpent heart hid with a flow’ring face! Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave? Beautiful tyrant, fiend angelical! Dove feathered raven, wolvish-ravening lamb!” (3.2.79-82). Shakespeare includes these oxymorons that describe Juliet’s new hateful views on Romeo, but the reader can still infer that Juliet still loves Romeo based on how she still views him as beautiful and fair. By using these oxymorons, readers can understand that even after Juliet believes that Romeo tricked her, she still cannot get mad at him, characterizing her as a truly loving and caring person. Furthermore, after meeting her one and only love Romeo at the party, Juliet says, “My only love sprung from my only hate!...That I must love a loathed enemy” (1.5.152,155). Shakespeare uses oxymorons all throughout this conversation to help the reader realize Juliet’s love predicament. By describing Romeo as Juliet’s “loathed enemy” and her “only hate”, it enhances her problem and they can sympathize for her. These oxymorons describe the problem that Juliet faces and how she is torn between pleasing her parents or pleasing herself, helping the reader characterize her as a strong woman. Shakespeare’s oxymorons enhance that thoughts and actions of almost all characters and by adding them, the reader can further interpret the

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