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Mercutio Essay

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Mercutio Essay
English 10- Block 1
25 October 2012
Romeo And Juliet Essay In William Shakespeare’s tragic play Romeo and Juliet, the son and daughter of rival families fall helplessly in love with each other, but a series of catastrophic events lead to the eventual demise of both characters. There is no question that the main character, Romeo, faces a countless number of tragedies throughout the play. The real question is who helps him through these hardships more, Benvolio or Mercutio? Both of these characters are great friends to Romeo in different ways, but if one had to be chosen as Romeo’s best friend it would be Mercutio. Throughout the play, Mercutio cares about the well-being of Romeo, defends Romeo’s honor, and tries to cheer Romeo up through humor. While Benvolio performs a few deeds of friendship, these showings of friendship are not as constant or as outspoken as Mercutio’s showings of friendship. To finish with, Mercutio is a better friend to Romeo than Benvolio is because he does more for Romeo and does these key things for Romeo in a better fashion than Benvolio does. Throughout the play, Mercutio truly cares about how Romeo is doing, and tries to keep Romeo safe. A prime example of Mercutio’s caring about the main character’s well-being can be seen when he and Romeo are discussing how Romeo is doing with the break-up of his ex-girlfriend, Rosaline.

If love be rough with you, be rough with love:
Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.
Give me a case to put my visage in,
A visor for a visor! What care I
What curious eye doth cote deformities?
Here are the beetle brows shall blush for me. (Act 1, Scene 4, Lines 27-32)

What Mercutio is trying to tell Romeo here is that he really needs to get over Rosaline, and that if love is being rough with him, he needs to be even rougher back against love. This is great advice that Mercutio gives to Romeo, and the reason he tells Romeo this is because he hates seeing his best friend so upset about

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