" His language is insistent, but Mercutio's death is more than he can bear: he takes it personally and is blinded by the abuse he feels that he has suffered. His language changes from insistence to accusation. First, he feels his pains: "This gentleman… / My very friend, hath got his mortal hurt / in my behalf; my reputation stain'd / With Tybalt's slander" (3.1.73-76). Then, he turns to blame -- and the first person he blames is the very same person he has vowed to love earlier that same day: Juliet. "O sweet Juliet! / Thy beauty hath made me effeminate, / and in my temper soften'd valour's steel!" (3.1.77-79). When Tybalt returns, Romeo has stoked his own rage and says, "Fire-ey'd fury be my conduct now!" (3.1.90). One can hear him fanning the flames of his wrath with the alliterative "ff" sound. When Romeo kills Tybalt, his rage is quenched -- but now his character crumbles. Having abandoned the love that made him swell and grow so quickly, he has cut off the life that gave him life. He is wounded and unable to accept the fact that he has wounded himself, crying out instead that he is "Fortune's fool" (3.1.103). Later, he will literally wound (mortally) himself, following a grotesque descent into the horror of his own soul, which has been governed by nothing more than appetite. The language is briefly elevated once more at the sight of Juliet -- but believing that she is dead and that death destroys all, his words do not sustain but only make his loss that much more painful That descent bottoms out at the Capulet tomb, where Juliet is buried. Here, Romeo looks upon the grave and reckons that all men and women are nothing more than food for its mouth: "Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death, / Gorg'd with the dearest morsel of the earth, / Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open, and, in despite, I'll cram thee with more food!" (5.3.48-51). His sense of living for any saintly purpose has escaped him....
He reflects the kind of nihilism that plagues Macbeth after he runs his murderous course. "Maw," "gorg'd," and "morsel" all complement the idea upon which Romeo has fixated: namely, that life is governed by appetites and that those appetites spring from and return to Death. Indeed, he calls the grave a "womb of death" -- and a hideous inversion takes place: rather than life coming out of the womb, Romeo promises to stuff the womb with more death. The language illustrates the despair to which he has succumbed. When Paris arrives to stop what he believes is about to be the abuse of Juliet's corpse, Romeo unleashes his fury upon the unsuspecting innocent.
Shot-by-Shot Analysis of Mercutio�s Death in Romeo + Juliet (1996)The scene begins with a low angled shot as Tybalt leaps into frame from a balcony to beat Romeo lying off screen out of frame below him. Shot two is over the shoulder of Tybalt, or rather over the hip, and shows Romeo in the sand being kicked by Tybalt. Shot three is a cut to Mercutio�s face full in frame
Like Romeo, Juliet believes that the only solution is committing suicide, but the Friar tells her of a secret potion, a drug that will make her only appear dead for almost two days. The Friar tells Juliet to take it the night before her wedding. Meanwhile, he will send a note to Romeo to tell him about this secret plan. For Juliet, this appears to be the only plan that
Romeo and Juliet is complex, because of several reasons. First, the two protagonists are young and, as a consequence, their relationship has all the immaturity that comes with the age, as well as the need to dramatize everything, including the need to take drastic measures when things don't go the right way (which helps to explain why the two characters die in the end). Second, they are members of two
Romeo and Juliet: A Tale of Love and Anxiety Shakespeare's story of Romeo and Juliet is often accepted as the tragic story of two lovers who cannot be together. Romeo is part of the Montague family, which has a long history of feuding with Juliet's family, the Capulets. Romeo and Juliet meet and instantly fall in love. The tragedy is that they cannot be together because of their feuding families. In
Romeo and Juliet: Act II Close Reading of one of Juliet's speeches from "The Balcony Scene," Act II, Scene II -- the theme of 'star crossed' (i.e. doomed) love JULIET Well, do not swear: although I joy in thee, I have no joy of this contract to night: It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden; Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be Ere one can say 'It lightens.' Sweet, good night! This bud of
Juliet's speeches to the Friar after learning that she must marry Paris in a week's time indicate this as she lists the horrors she would rather endure: "bid me leap... / From off the battlements of any tower...lurk / Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears..." (Riverside 1130, IV.i. 77-80). She continues in much the same vein, and this is not her only moment of such emotional extremity.
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