How Does Shakespeare Use Conflict in Romeo and Juliet Act 1 Scene 1?
How does Shakespeare use conflict in Romeo and Juliet Act 1 Scene 1?
In this essay I will address how conflict is successfully used in Act 1 Scene 1 to prepare the audience for the rest of the play. It will firstly show how Shakespeare uses physical conflict between the two feuding families. Secondly I will demonstrate the idea that Shakespeare introduces emotional conflict through the character of Romeo, and his outpourings of love for Rosaline. Finally I will show that the character of Romeo demonstrates both physical or external conflict and emotional or internal conflict. The purpose of the prologue is to clearly outline the plot of the whole play in fourteen lines and it also allows the audience to be settled before the actual play properly starts. The audience gets a glimpse of the rest of the play, it is introducing the idea that there is conflict; for instance “death-marked love” gives the idea of love not being positive, but is hinting that love is in fact negative as it relates to death. The prologue is a fourteen-line sonnet; it rhymes alternately till the last two lines where the sentences end in rhyming couplets indicating to the audience that the first act is beginning. The audience watching the play would associate a sonnet with love. However the audience is made aware that death and violence are going to be a major part of the play due to very angry, violent and aggressive words; these include “death”, “rage” and also “mutiny”. We are also told that “from ancient grudge break to new mutiny” which describes a history “ancient” long standing conflict between the two families. We also learn that there is a “continuance of the parents’ rage” indicating to the audience that this conflict is still on-going and unlikely to be easily resolved.
Act 1 Scene 1 opens with Gregory and Sampson of the house of Capulet, in a public place in Verona City which shows immediately where the story will take place. From the outset it is clear that the servants are looking
In this essay I will address how conflict is successfully used in Act 1 Scene 1 to prepare the audience for the rest of the play. It will firstly show how Shakespeare uses physical conflict between the two feuding families. Secondly I will demonstrate the idea that Shakespeare introduces emotional conflict through the character of Romeo, and his outpourings of love for Rosaline. Finally I will show that the character of Romeo demonstrates both physical or external conflict and emotional or internal conflict. The purpose of the prologue is to clearly outline the plot of the whole play in fourteen lines and it also allows the audience to be settled before the actual play properly starts. The audience gets a glimpse of the rest of the play, it is introducing the idea that there is conflict; for instance “death-marked love” gives the idea of love not being positive, but is hinting that love is in fact negative as it relates to death. The prologue is a fourteen-line sonnet; it rhymes alternately till the last two lines where the sentences end in rhyming couplets indicating to the audience that the first act is beginning. The audience watching the play would associate a sonnet with love. However the audience is made aware that death and violence are going to be a major part of the play due to very angry, violent and aggressive words; these include “death”, “rage” and also “mutiny”. We are also told that “from ancient grudge break to new mutiny” which describes a history “ancient” long standing conflict between the two families. We also learn that there is a “continuance of the parents’ rage” indicating to the audience that this conflict is still on-going and unlikely to be easily resolved.
Act 1 Scene 1 opens with Gregory and Sampson of the house of Capulet, in a public place in Verona City which shows immediately where the story will take place. From the outset it is clear that the servants are looking