The Dramatic Effectiveness and Significance of Act 3, Scene 1 in Romeo and Juliet

The Dramatic Effectiveness and Significance of Act 3, Scene 1 in Romeo and Juliet

Shakespeare’s second tragedy ‘Romeo and Juliet’ was written between

1594 and 1596. The play is set in Verona a city in the north of Italy.

In the play it is portrayed as a small independent country. The prince

of Verona rules the city like a king and everyone obeys him. It is set

over a period of four day. Shakespeare got the idea from a poem by

Arthur Brooke called ‘the tragical history of Romeus and Juliet’ which

had been written in 1562. Shakespeare

’s version of the story is very similar, but differs in the following

ways. He added characters such as Romeos friend Mercutio; he also made

the nurse and Benvolio have larger parts. This play is still popular

today as it has many good atmosphere changes: from the comedy to the

action and the romance and betray. Also many directors have made this

play into new and exciting versions.

Act 3 scene 1 is significant because as in many of Shakespeare’s plays

this is the climax of the play. Acts before this showed the fighting

and the feuding between the family and the romance building with

Juliet and the wedding. In this scene two of the main characters die

in a violent way. This increases tension, feuding and leads to Romeo’s

banishment from Verona. This then has consequences on Juliet as they

only married the day before. This is then the turning point of the

play as it leads to more deaths and tragedy.

This scene has a lot of dramatic impact on an audience as it has a lot

of changes in the atmosphere. This scene starts light hearted with

Mercutio and joking around and Benvolio convincing him he was wrong...

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...wide shots

to show all of the characters in the scene. The fight scenes also

contained less violence and also less suspense. This technique showed

the characters emotions much better though.

In conclusion this scene is very significant and dramatic because it

is the turning point of the play. Before this the play was joyful with

romance and the meeting of two characters with love at first sight.

Then it changes to suspense and tension with main characters dying. We

also learn a lot about two of the main characters, Romeo and Mercutio.

This scene is full of powerful lines and text and so the whole play is

still popular today. This play has also been made into films because

of its excitement and its dramatic effect on the audience as it is

still popular and is able to be updated as is shown in Baz Luhrmann

version.