Romeo & Juliet, Conflict Essay
iRomeo and Juliet were written by William Shakespeare - Romeo & Juliet, Conflict Essay introduction. The play is about two star crossed lovers who are born into two different families who have an ancient grudge. This leads to both Romeo and Juliet’s deaths. The play has strong violence and conflict involved in it. Shakespeare uses different types of conflict throughout the play. The Prologue shows that there will be conflict in the play when it mentions, ‘From ancient grudge… Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. ’ The word Civil makes me think that people who are not involved in the grudge still suffer pain.
This gives you a quick impression of what the play is going to be about. In the first scene, conflict is shown by the Capulet and Montague’s servants. Sampson and Gregory, the Capulet’s servants, bite their thumb at the Montague’s servant, Abraham. The servant’s soon start arguing and Benvolio, Lord Montague’s nephew, quickly steps in to end the verbal conflict that could lead to physical conflict. Benvolio shows that he doesn’t believe in conflict when it isn’t needed from his words, ‘Put up your swords, you know not what you do. ’ As Tybalt, Lady Capulet’s nephew gets involved he is then forced into a fight himself.
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Tybalt shows the first sign that the families hate each other from the quote, ‘Peace! I hate the word, as I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee. ’ The word Hate is repeated quite a few times, this shows me that Shakespeare was trying to demonstrate the fact that Tybalt is an important figure to the theme of conflict. Also, when he says that he hates peace, it makes it seems that he is always looking for a fight, even when one isn’t necessary. Shakespeare clearly shows conflict because before we even get into the play properly, the grudge is already shown by fighting.
I think that Shakespeare is trying to show us that conflict is happening constantly, even when it isn’t necessary. During the Capulet’s ball, Tybalt discovers that Romeo, Who is a Montague, is in the Capulet’s House. However, Lord Capulet says that there is no need for a quarrel. This leads to Tybalt being extremely angry, knowing that he is a violent character this is foreboding of the fact that this will torment Tybalt, eat him up in a way &he will want to do something to Romeo to give him pain. The quote, ‘I will withdraw’ foreshadows that a fight will break between Romeo &Tybalt later in the play.
However, Shakespeare makes the audience think that Tybalt is going to kill Romeo but in fact later on in the play Romeo kills Tybalt. Romeo shows lack of conflict, even when he discovers that Juliet is a Capulet, it only takes him a few moments to get it in his head then he realises that it is not an issue to him. However, Juliet sees this as the main problem &it takes her longer to realise that it is not an issue. The main conflict in this scene is that both of the lover’s families hate each other and this is the beginning of the ‘Star-crossed’ love that is mentioned in the prologue.
Act 3, Scene 1 is considered to be the main scene for conflict to arise. In this scene a fight breaks up between Mercutio and Tybalt. The fight brings the story to the highest tension because there hasn’t been a fight between the two families since prince warned them to keep peace. In the fighting, Mercutio is killed by Tybalt. Romeo, being Mercutio’s best friend, swears revenge on Tybalt and kills him. Now Romeo and Juliet face pain because Romeo’s best friend is dead and so is Juliet’s cousin.
Shakespeare was trying to show us that their love is a tragedy because they have to defeat the fact that Romeo had just killed Juliet’s Cousin. They cannot live like normal lovers after all that. Romeo himself also realizes that they cannot carry on their love as normal, as he says:”O, I am Fortune’s fool! ” This shows that Romeo is worried about his and Juliet’s relationship because they have shared their love for each other by getting married secretly, so Romeo thinks that is fortune. But now, he kills Tybalt and she may not accept him anymore, and the Capulet’s will never accept him.
This is shown when Lady Capulet says: “Romeo slew Tybalt; Romeo must not live. ” and Prince agrees that, he will execute Romeo. This tells readers that The Capulet’s only want to punish Romeo, because he kills Tybalt. Now, Romeo’s situation is that he gets Juliet’s trust and love and he has to make the Capulet’s accept him, he already succeeded with Juliet but because he kills Tybalt, he might have lost her trust and love and may have to start over. So this scene is a very important scene because it’s is the start of the tragedy and leads to action in the rest of the play.