Similarities Between Romeo And Juliet And Miss Havisham

Love is presented as a troubling and destructive emotion in both ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and Duffy’s poem ‘Miss Havisham’. Shakespeare frequently uses oxymorons to convey Romeo’s extreme and conflicting emotions to the audience, ‘feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health’. These oxymorons imply that everything that Romeo thought he once understood has been reversed due to his love for Rosaline, leaving him confused and isolated. ‘Sick health’ in particular highlights the contrast between Romeo’s physical and emotional wellbeing – although he appears to be physically healthy and normal, he is going through emotion turmoil within as his love is unrequited.
Similarly, Duffy uses language techniques such as oxymorons and broken sentence