shakespear conflict in romeo and juliet

In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare portrays love blossoming in the midst of violent conflict at the centre of the feud. The connection is not coincidental; it is essential. This antithesisbuilds tension, as the Chorus sets up a ‘fearful’, ‘fatal’, ‘death-marked mood’, sowing the seeds of tragedy in the turbulent ground of ‘rage’. The lovers will be destroyed in a catharticmovement that will ‘bury their parents’ strife’. Shakespeare shows the redemptive power of love opposed to destructive hate - and in some ways the feud seems the major cause of the tragedy. But it is not the only cause. Romeo’s violent love echoes Tybalt’s love of violence. Both characters act out the parts they’ve written for themselves, and in both cases, ‘violent delights’ come to ‘violent ends’.

The feud is carried on by high and low status members of the rival families of Capulet and Montague. Even the servants are involved in their low, dehumanising insults where they call their enemies ‘a dog’, but this is common brawling in contrasts with the nobles who use swords. Tybalt mocks Benvolio for being ‘drawn among these heartless hinds’ - where the animal images refers to the low-status of the servants. Belligerence infects every level. Those who want ‘peace’ are rare: Church and State, represented by the Friar and Prince respectively. The feud is offensive to God and to civilization therefore. Shakespeare plays with ideas of status, respect and civilization in the oxymoron ‘civil blood’. Here’ it is the vying for status that causes bloodshed, in behvaiour that seems far from civilized. It’s as if the feud is woven into the very fabric of society, yet, in Act 1 Scene 1, the Prince says they are ‘profaners’ and ‘enemies to peace’, as they threaten to tear society apart.

In Romeo and Juliet the feud is presented from the first lines as an ‘ancient grudge’ which ‘breaks to new mutiny’. The word ‘ancient’, ‘parents‘ - repeated twice - suggests this isdynastic, almost biblical, that the sins of the fathers will be visited upon the ‘children’. This links to the theme of coming of age - in love and hate. Immediately, Shakespeare establishes that the grudge is old, becoming more dangerous and the cause is never stated. This is pure rage without reason. Benvolio describes perfectly the irrationality of it: ‘these hot days, is the mad blood stirring’. In the climax at Act 3 Scene 1, he urges that Mercutio and Tybalt ‘reason coldly’ - in vain - for there is nothing there that can be reasoned. The Prince cites the cause, dismissively, as an ‘airy word’, tipping grimly into its dark consequences: ‘pain of death’. The fight is real enough though it starts with just words - Tybalt says ‘I hate hell all Montagues and thee’, apparently unaware of the irony of hating hell and loving violence. Again, he does not justify his rage any more than the servants do - their only reason being a disagreement over who has the ‘better’ master. The obscure, obscene gesture to ‘bite my thumb‘ quickly tips into swordplay. But at this point, the only thing that is hurt is pride. At no point is the feud logically justified as if this is emotion for emotion’s sake, a monster that feeds on itself.

The younger characters enjoy the excess of emotion more than their elders, with a stronger sense of pride, as when Tybalt spots Romeo at his family’s party and complains of the ‘shame’. The lack of ‘patience’ and ‘endurance’, and risk-taking behavious are stressed by Shakespeare as youthful qualities - in Tybalt, Mercutio for the feud, Romeo and Juliet in love. The psychological accuracy of this is striking, as is the identical passion in opposite cases - of love and in hate. In many ways, Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy of youth, ‘new’ minted, more than love or hate, per se. Capulet commands Tybalt that Romeo ‘shall be endur’d’ and asserts his own status as the ‘master’. But youth will ‘deny [its] father’ - with tragic consequences. The nurse and Friar counsel moderation. The Friar’s famous speech could be flipped equally well to describe the feud, which will, he says, in ‘triumph die, like fire and powder’ - using the semantic field of battle for the destructive nature of love. He says it will ‘consume’ itself. The image of eating suggests the pleasure that the characters take in their passions, but also its utterly destructive nature. The Friar picks up thenarcissistic element of taking it too easily: ‘so light is vanity’ and the proximity of this scene with the major brawl in Act 3 Scene 1 demands that we consider both together: as the feud goes nuclear. The Friar’s final words to ‘incorporate two in one’ contrasts with brutal irony against the violent clash of the two houses in the next act.

The repetition of ‘quarrel’ and ‘quarrelling’ in Mercutio’s speech is darkly ominous, as is his tangled prose. He is not content with a ‘word’, he demands also a ‘blow’. Mercutio is not a member of either family, and loves violence for its own sake: as the Friar prophesies, he will in triumph die, but it will only continue to escalate.

Romeo is torn by his duty to the feud and says love of Juliet has ‘made me effeminate’. This shows that in his masculine culture, peace is weakness, feminine and to be despised. Yet Shakespeare shows that love has the power to heal and ‘remove’ this feud - though only after tragedy and death of the ‘star-crossed lovers’. The feud adds power to the love across a divide, adding to the tension as the Chorus says Juliet will ‘steal love’s sweet from fearful hooks’. The feud makes her fearful.