How_Shakespeare_Crafts_a_Tragedy

Shakespeare Unit Text: Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet Assignment: Explore Shakespeare’s of a tragedy in his tragedy Romeo and Juliet. Use quotations from the text to support your sentences. How Shakespeare Crafts a Tragedy William Shakespeare devised a romantic-tragedy called Romeo and Juliet by building up the emotion, hatred and sorrow. The play is set in Verona where there is a feud between two families called the Montagues and Capulets, they each produce a single child who fall in love and end up dying tragically. Even though Shakespeare’s play was a romantic story he aimed for his audience to experience pathos by creating such a tragic ending which ends the conflict between the families but it leaves them grieving over the deaths of two lovers. The play is cleverly written as Shakespeare used mainly young, innocent and defined characters as their deaths provided a vital ingredient to making the pathos even greater. Shakespeare cleverly crafts the prologue by foretelling the conclusion of the play at the beginning. He uses a sonnet and it is perfect for the genre as Romeo & Juliet is a romantic story, although he uses descriptive phrases like “A pair of star crossed lovers take their life” this suggests that two people who got hit by fate and end up losing their life you love. As well as the foretelling phrases of miserable events, he uses negative words such as “strife”, “fatal”, “death”, and this gave his audience negative imagery. Shakespeare’s use of the prologue reveals how it can be an important technique for devising a great tragedy. Shakespeare managed to use foreshadowing in every act of the play with characters oblivious to the fact that they were foretelling their endings. Romeo’s soliloquy in Act 5 Scene 1 Line 6 begins with explaining a dream he had “I dreamt my lady came and found me dead” he predicts his death but in line where Romeo says that his lady brings him back to life with her kisses, sadly Shakespeare does not want a happy ending otherwise it wouldn’t be a tragedy so when Romeo does die he does not wake up again. Also in Act 3 Scene 5 Line 54-57 Juliet is alone with Romeo on a balcony thinking about what life would be like with out Romeo she states that Romeo was better off dead than not being with her by quoting “Methinks I see thee [Romeo] now thou art so low, as one dead at the bottom of a tomb”. After the death of Mercutio and Tybalt in Act 3 the mood of the play dramatically changes from excitement (with the secret wedding of Romeo and Juliet) to misery (Romeo is exiled to Mantua). Mercutio was generally a funny and energetic character but as he is dying in the streets of Verona, Mercutio describes his wound in Act 3 Scene 1 Line 92–93 “No, ’tis not as deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but ‘tis enough, ‘twill serve. He says that the wound may be small but it is enough to kill him he also jokes about how he is going to end up by saying “Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man”. Shakespeare had a great use of a pun as the word “grave” has two meanings. One meaning is a corpse is a grave and other is a serious person. Shakespeare used this pun because he wanted to show that Mercutio could still make jokes even though he is dying. He uses a curse which is typical in Greek tragedies to foreshadowing the play’s conclusion “A plague on both your houses”. And he curses both the Montague and the Capulet households. When Mercutio is killed by Tybalt, Romeo seeks revenge but after Tybalt is slain he quotes in Act 3 Scene 1 Line 132 “O, I am fortune’s fool” he realises the consequences he has to suffer. When Tybalt dies immediately the whole mood of the play changes as Romeo is banished to Mantua by Prince Escales. Romeo did not want to kill Tybalt as Romeo knew he was related to him through the marriage to Juliet, but he wanted to take revenge for the death of his friend. In Act 3 Scene 5 Juliet feels extremely lonely as she has lost her friendship with her Nurse because she could not cope with Juliet being disowned by her parents so she was trying to convince Juliet to marry Paris. Juliet felt that she could not trust her again, this left Juliet with no one to turn to as Romeo had been banished to Mantua due to the death of Tybalt. Lady Capulet finds her daughter crying and assumes she is mourning over the death of Tybalt, and she never had a great bondage with Juliet as the Nurse was like her surrogate mother. Juliet becomes severely miserable when her mother says she has sent an assassin to kill him. Shakespeare uses Juliet’s isolation to make the pathos even greater as she faked her death so she could be happy with Romeo in Mantua. By running away with his but she ends up finding him dead and commits suicide. Shakespeare crafts many events in the play to happen by coincidence. For example Friar John was not able to deliver a crucial letter to Romeo to explain that Juliet was going to fake her death. But Friar John had conveniently been locked in a house with the plague. The plague was common in the Elizabethan era. This incident affected the whole play as Romeo did not need to die because if he had not died then Juliet nor Paris would be dead, and the play would not have a tragic ending. Another coincidence was that Friar Laurence arrived just after Romeo had committed suicide. When a noise frightens the friar it scares him off as he does not want to be caught with Juliet trying to help her escape or he would be in serious trouble. So he leaves Juliet and she ends up stabbing herself with Romeo’s dagger. Shakespeare used Paris to make the ending of his play even more tragic. As Shakespeare used a young, loyal, innocent and well-intentioned character when Paris died it made the pathos greater because Paris was oblivious to the situation. He innocently wanted to marry Juliet. Unfortunately she had already been secretly wed to Romeo and she faked her death to be with him. Everyone except Friar Laurence thought she was dead so Paris was trying to be a dutiful husband-to-be by visiting Juliet’s tomb. Paris was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Paris tried to do what was right by attempting to arrest Romeo when he saw Romeo in the Capulet tomb, he assumed that Romeo was there to vandalise. The tomb was very dark as Paris did not want to be seen so when the two men fought Romeo was unaware of his opponent. When Paris was defeated his dying wish was to be laid next to Juliet. Romeo then realised that he killed Paris and so Romeo had more guilt upon his shoulders. There was only one reason for the death of Romeo and it was because Friar John could not deliver the crucial letter explaining the circumstances. Romeo was a young, gentle and peaceful character. When Romeo defeated Paris in the Capulet tomb, he felt very sympathetic towards Paris as he realised that they both had a lot in common as they both dearly loved Juliet and this made the tragedy so great. They both died because of love. Romeo bought some poison from an apothecary so he could rest in peace with Juliet, so he had planned to die not knowing that she was not dead. Shakespeare made sure that Juliet’s death was worse of all because she faked her death so she could be with Romeo. She was young, and pretty. She was arranged to be married to Paris as her parents were unaware that she had been secretly wed to Romeo. She had been disowned by her parents and the Nurse lost her trust. So Juliet tried to make her life better for Romeo and herself. But Shakespeare did not want a happy ending for his play or his audience would not be able to experience pathos. Romeo and Juliet were known to have flaws in their characters. As it was love at first sight and that swiftly went to a secret wedding. Juliet quoted “My only love came from my only hate”; she exaggerated as she had only met him once and assumed he was the best. Juliet was a bit biased towards Romeo; she never really gave Paris a chance. Paris proved he was loyal and well-intentioned, and he would have been approved by Juliet’s parents. Shakespeare let Romeo, Juliet, Paris, Mercutio and Tybalt died. But sadly Lady Montague died aswell, there was no specific cause for her death but it makes the play even more depressing as it was one extra person killed due to this tragedy. Overall, Shakespeare’s play was a well written play as he was able to achieve his aim for his audience to experience pathos, I experienced pathos myself as I felt too many people died and most of the dead were young. There were many reasons for this because the Montagues and the Capulets both had a single child and the both died this made the tragedy even sadder as Romeo and Juliet were young lovers and they just wanted to be happy. I enjoyed the way Shakespeare used many ideas to make one tragedy as he used coincidence, death and foreshadowing to help make such an outstanding tragedy.