Conflict Romeo Juliet
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Romeo and Juliet is a tragic play about love, romance, relationships, families and violence. Although mainly about love, there are many scenes that contain violence and conflict. This play opens with a fight and ends with reconciliation. The violence in this play occurs from a long standing disagreement between two families (Montague’s + Capulet’s). The events lead to the tragic deaths of �Romeo and Juliet.’ In this essay I will discuss how Shakespeare uses conflict to create the tragedy in which style this play was written.
Physical conflict is the most obvious form of conflict, it is the effective in terms of representing itself, but it is also the most deadly and leads to more eventualities than any other kind of conflict. It leads to the deaths of Tybalt, Mercutio, Paris, and вЂ?Romeo and Juliet’. Physical conflict scenes are memorable and therefore used majorly on three times throughout the play, for dramatic effectiveness. In Act 1 Scene 1, the feud starts of with a small brawl of servants from both of the households. Benvolio does his best to вЂ?keep the peace’ but the feud is overwhelming and the fight begins “Gregory, remember thy washing blow!” No deaths occur in the opening scene, but the Prince sentences any man or woman of Montague or Capulet blood who disturbs Verona’s streets again, their lives shall pay the forfeit. Shakespeare sets the scene in the first Act and the feud only escalates from there. Shakespeare has used the first conflict scene immediately to show how serious the feud is, ranging from servants right up to the lords of the households. In Act 3 scene 1, a particularly vicious and war driven character, Tybalt, ends up with two deaths on his behalf, Mercutio’s and his own. By killing off Romeo’s best friend and Juliet’s cousin, Shakespeare adds tension to whether the relationship between the lovers will part. But their love holds strong, even when Romeo is banished from Verona.
After the famous meeting of Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare suddenly places a huge obstacle for the “Star-crossed lovers” to get over. The rivalry of both their families would never allow a Montague and a Capulet to fall in love let alone marry. After Romeo’s realisation that the woman he just kissed was Juliet, he is wrought with despair. The surge of mental conflict would be overwhelming and Shakespeare does his best to show how distraught Romeo is. A similar situation is concocted with Juliet as she talks to the nurse, “My only love sprung from my only hate!” (Act 1 Scene 5 Line 137.)
Not only does Shakespeare use conflict internally, he puts his undying knowledge of language conflict to create a vivid picture for the reader. The Oxymoron is a great example of language conflict. “My only love sprung from my only hate” is also a good example of conflict in language. Another example of Oxymoron’s is near the end of Act 1 scene 1 where Romeo is talking to Benvolio about how much he loves Rosaline, and how she does not love him in return. A whole stream of Oxymoron’s are spoken by Romeo:
“O loving hate… O heavy lightness, serious vanity, misshapen chaos of well seeming forms, feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health, still waking sleep.” (Act 1 scene 1 lines 167-172.)
Love, being a strong theme within the play, is also used in Conflict, for without conflict there would be no conflict. Shakespeare yet again uses his extreme capability with language to create a wondrous phrase of conflict. The effects of the Oxymoron’s