Act 3 Scene 1 Of Romeo And Juliet Essay

The Dramatic Qualities of Act 3 Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet

Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” is a tragedy, dealing with the love story between Romeo and Juliet, set against the feud between their two families. Shakespeare uses metaphors and similes to help create tension by comparing things with something else, for example “Am I like such a fellow?” Which is describing but also asking a question, But also Shakespeare also uses rhyming couplets to have a dramatic effect, such as “what eye but such an eye would spy at an quarrel?” is where Shakespeare uses Mercutio’s character to play with the words to make it funny and dramatic at the same time.

At the start of the scene tension is created

Benvolio, suggests to Mercutio to go inside and stay out of trouble, such as “I pray thee, good Mercutio lets retire; the day is hot, the capels are abroad, and if we meet we shall not ‘scape a brawl, for now these hot days is the mad blood is stirring ” but Mercutio is very clever with his language and shows this as the scene progresses, and Mercutio’s response to Benvolios comment about going inside is quite blunt and directly tells Benvolio that he usually starts the fights and he is a fine one to talk, for instance “and yet thou wilt tutor me from quarrelling!” which shows Mercutio is looking for a fight.

As the scene develops the atmosphere progressively becomes a lot darker and sinister, even Mercutio who is usually very humorous,

As Romeo enters the scene, but he will not fight Tybalt as they are now family, which creates dramatic irony.

Shakespeare has only used this technique at this point of the scene, this shows how important this scene.

In the 17th century, the revenge code was if you were the victim of a crime then you were legally allowed to get revenge and the best way was to challenge them to a duel.

The highest point of dramatic irony is when Mercutio becomes angry and curses both families and says “A plague on both your houses” and he dies.

The reason that this is the highest point of dramatic irony is that nobody realises that he is dying, but what they do think is that he is joking as Mercutio always does, but when Romeo realises that he is dead he goes after Tybalt and challenges Tybalt to a duel which Tybalt accepts, Romeo then kills Tybalt in the honour of his family.

The scene is left in a dilemma this is because Romeo is banished but he is also married to Juliet, even if Romeo was executed for killing Tybalt he would be in the same situation as he won’t be able to