Comparison of Conflict; Romeo & Juliet, Charge of the Light Brigade, and the Man He Killed
Conflict can be portrayed in many different ways, some of which are light hearted, and some that are not so cheerful. We are able to see examples of this all around us in everyday life, but in my opinion some of the most interesting cases are found within novels, plays and poems.
The play ‘Romeo & Juliet’ in itself could be considered as a connotation of conflict, showing not only the general day to day disputes, but the intense and aggressive types of conflict that we can be faced with. For example, the prologue of ‘Romeo & Juliet’ talks of the conflict as an ‘ancient grudge’ from which comes ‘new mutiny’, immediately delivering a sense of foreboding to the audience. The way in which William Shakespeare has decided to portray the conflict right from the beginning of the play could arguably be to symbolise the inescapability of conflict, almost as though a higher power is controlling the happenings of our two title characters lives.
This could be compared to the poem ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’, as in the first stanza of the poem we are already told of the ‘six hundred’ who are lead into the ‘valley of death’ by a higher power. In the case of this poem the higher power would arguably be the general or commander of the team of men. However unlike ‘Romeo & Juliet’ the second stanza sticks with the same intensity of conflict, where as William Shakespeare had decided to use the technique of juxtaposition by following the initial sense of foreboding with a more light hearted type of conflict.
The idea of juxtaposition and contrasting is not so different from the portrayal that Siegfried Sassoon made on conflict. He arguably juxtaposed the intensity of his conflict by starting with an initial shock, ‘I am banished’ which perhaps was used to recreate the initial shock that Sassoon would have received when he first stepped out onto the front line. This is then followed by ‘shoulder to aching shoulder’, signifying unity and bond which is a more uplifting
The play ‘Romeo & Juliet’ in itself could be considered as a connotation of conflict, showing not only the general day to day disputes, but the intense and aggressive types of conflict that we can be faced with. For example, the prologue of ‘Romeo & Juliet’ talks of the conflict as an ‘ancient grudge’ from which comes ‘new mutiny’, immediately delivering a sense of foreboding to the audience. The way in which William Shakespeare has decided to portray the conflict right from the beginning of the play could arguably be to symbolise the inescapability of conflict, almost as though a higher power is controlling the happenings of our two title characters lives.
This could be compared to the poem ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’, as in the first stanza of the poem we are already told of the ‘six hundred’ who are lead into the ‘valley of death’ by a higher power. In the case of this poem the higher power would arguably be the general or commander of the team of men. However unlike ‘Romeo & Juliet’ the second stanza sticks with the same intensity of conflict, where as William Shakespeare had decided to use the technique of juxtaposition by following the initial sense of foreboding with a more light hearted type of conflict.
The idea of juxtaposition and contrasting is not so different from the portrayal that Siegfried Sassoon made on conflict. He arguably juxtaposed the intensity of his conflict by starting with an initial shock, ‘I am banished’ which perhaps was used to recreate the initial shock that Sassoon would have received when he first stepped out onto the front line. This is then followed by ‘shoulder to aching shoulder’, signifying unity and bond which is a more uplifting