Violence and conflict are central to Romeo and Juliet Essay Example

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Juliet's nurse finds her thinking she is dead and tells the rest of the Capulets. When the word reaches Romeo he decides to risk going back into Verona and buys some poison himself.He meets Paris at Juliet's burial chamber and fights him, killing Pairs. After kissing Juliet Romeo drinks his poison and dies just as Juliet is waking up.

Julie is distraught after seeing her dead husband and picks up his dagger and stabs herself. The two families find the bodies and are both terribly sad. The prince punishes the two families and they both make up. Shakespeare wanted to show the Elizabethan audiences that living in violence and conflict, like the people in the play, is not the best way to live, and how it leads to tragedy.

He used many dramatic techniques in the play.One of these techniques is the abrupt shift from romantic to tragedy. At the beginning of the play the first part of the play is lighter but when Mercutio dies the play becomes more serious and dramatic. Shakespeare also uses sub-plots to offer a clearer view of the actions of the main characters. For example; Shakespeare uses the characters Rosaline and Paris and Romeo and Juliet's feelings for these characters as a comparison between Romeo and Juliet's feelings and love for each other.

This shows the audience the seriousness of their love and marriage.Violence and conflict are central to Romeo and Juliet and are portrayed in several ways throughout the play. They both highlight the love element in Romeo and Juliet because they are such a contrast. The violence is shown through the feud between the Capulets and

the Montagues. In the very first scene we see a fight between the servants of the two families and these hostilities occur throughout the play. Violence is also shown through the deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt during a fight that Tybalt started in order to provoke Romeo.

Near the end of the play Romeo and Paris, love rivals, have a contest in order to show their love for Juliet.There is also violence when the two lovers kill themselves, although Juliet's suicide is more violent and gruesome than Romeos because she stabs herself rather than drinking poison. Conflict in the play is also shown in many ways, for example, the clash between Juliet and her father Lord Capulet. He is very strict and doesn't understand her feelings and is therefore forcing her to marry Paris.

The two families stereotyped each other, some of them had never met, but they still hated each other and they had done for many years in the past. This is another instance of conflict.When Mercutio was killed Romeo showed that he loved his best friend by killing Tybalt, he was banished from Verona. In the opening scene the two family's violence is shown very clearly as the play starts with the two families fighting. This shows that Tybalt and Romeo do not get along because of the rivalry.

Romeo also dislikes Paris because they share their love for Juliet. The suicides of Romeo and Juliet show how strong their love is for each other. In act one scene 1 we see Sampson and Gregory talking about how they dislike the Montagues and how they are willing to fight them.Abram and Balthasar

of the Montagues enter the scene. The servants start jeering at each other which leads them to start fighting.

Benvolio enters and tries to stop the fighting by beating down their swords with his when Tybalt comes and sees him and thinks he is fighting the servants. Benvolio tries to encourage Tybalt to stop the fighting, but Tybalt doesn't believe that Benvolio's intentions were to stop the fight. "What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word, as I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee: Have at thee, coward" this leads Tybalt and Benvolio to also start fighting.The citizens of Verona gather round and start to get drawn into the fight. Even the heads of the two families are there, Capulet and Montague.

They are so riled up they too want to start fighting, but their wives won't let them. At this point the prince of Verona enters and tells them to stop fighting, talking to everyone involved, tells the two families that their ancient hate has caused the previously peaceful citizens of Verona to resort to picking up weapons to try and cease the hatred.If ever you disturb our streets again, your lives will pay the forfeit of the peace", he explains to the families that if they are caught fighting again, they will be punished with death. The first scene prepares us for the rest of the play, giving us the idea that it might be full of conflict and violence.

We see right from the start how strong the two families' hatred for each other is so we expect to see more conflict and violence throughout the rest of the play.

This first scene also gives us some background on the city of Verona and its citizens.The speech that the prince gives to everyone tells us that before the Montague's and Capulet's rivalry began the citizens of Verona were peaceful and less violent. The only reason they have started fighting is to try and put an end to all the arguments. This is made clear to us when the prince says "And made Verona's ancient citizens cast by their grave beseeming ornaments, to wield old partisans, in hands as old, cankered with peace, to part your cankered hate.

"" In act 3 scene 5 Romeo leaves Juliet's room in the morning after spending the night with her. Juliet's mother comes to see Juliet in her room. When she sees Juliet upset she thinks it's because of Tybalt's death, and Juliet goes alone with this. Her mother tells her that her father has arranged for her to marry Paris, hoping this will cheer her up, but this makes her even more depressed.

Juliet refuses to agree to marry him as her father comes in.She has an argument about marrying Paris, and Capulet says he'll disown her if she doesn't marry him. After the argument nurse comes is to comfort Juliet and starts to tell her all the bad things about Romeo trying to persuade her to marry Paris instead. This scene is important to the story because now we know that Juliet has no choice but to marry Paris.

The scene shows conflict, first between Capulet and Juliet, and secondly between Juliet and her nurse.Capulet is surprised that Juliet doesn't want to marry Paris and thinks she

is ungrateful because he has made a lot of effort to persuade Paris to marry her. Doth she not count her blest, Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought, So worthy a gentleman to be her bride? " Capulet was giving Juliet only one option and if she declined, he would drag her to the church. He even went as far to say if she wouldn't marry him he would disown her, and wouldn't care if she was to die in the street. "And you be mine, I'll give you to my friend; And you be not , hang, beg, starve, die in the streets, For by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee" Although there is no violence the words are extremely hurtful and harsh, especially as they are family.Shakespeare manages to portray strong conflict between the two characters.

After Capulet leaves Juliet turns to her nurse for comfort and support. She expects the nurse to be sympathetic because she is the only one who knows how she really feels about Romeo; However, the nurse starts to say that Juliet will be better off with Paris as she point out that Romeo was banished from Verona anyway. She starts pointing out all the good things about Paris and all the bad things about Romeo. "Romeo's a dishclout to him. An eagle, madam, Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye as Paris hath.

Juliet is very upset and angry with the nurse and she feels betrayed as she was meant to be her friend. Juliet vows not to take any more advice from her. This is how Shakespeare has portrayed the conflict between

Juliet and the nurse. In the last scene of the play Romeo finds Paris grieving over Juliet. They have a fight over her, and Romeo kills Paris.

When Romeo finds Juliet he can't believe she's actually dead without knowing she'll wake up in just a few minutes. Romeo finds the poison that he got from the apothecary and drinks it after giving Juliet one last kiss.As soon as he dies the friar and Balthasar come in and find Romeo and Juliet both dead. Juliet wakes up and sees that Romeo is dead; the friar tries to comfort her but Juliet pushes him away. The friar soon leaves and when he does Juliet finds Romeo' dagger and stabs herself after kissing him. After a while all the members of both families come in to find them dead.

They are upset and confused because they don't know what has happened. The friar stands to speak, and tells everyone what has happened and why they are both dead. The friar feels bad about helping Juliet, giving her the poison, to marry Romeo.The prince tells both families that their argument had caused both deaths.

This speech helps the two families to stop fighting and to forgive each other. The first violent event of the scene is Romeo and Paris' battle, fighting over Juliet's body. When Romeo finds Paris at Juliet's tomb he feels angry because he knows that she truly loved him and not Paris. He is upset to find his love rival there because he wanted to be alone with Juliet. Paris accuses Romeo for being the reason of Juliet's death. Paris says Romeo should die, Romeo agrees

but not to be punished, only to be with Juliet.

He tells Paris to leave so that he can kill himself, but Paris keeps on provoking him, this causes them to fight. "Wilt thou provoke me? Then have at thee, boy! " In Romeo's last speech he displays how distraught he is and how much he loved Juliet, and then tragically drinks the poison and kills himself. The deaths of Paris and Romeo seem so unnecessary and sad to the audience because we know that Juliet isn't actually dead. Shakespeare makes Juliet's death more violent and gruesome then Romeo's to really shock the audience.Although the play has a fair amount of comedy optimism and romance, it ends in a heartbreaking catastrophe.

It leaves the audience feeling incredibly frustrated as they can see that all the deaths could have been avoided. However, Shakespeare manages to lift the mood ever so slightly at the end by showing that the rival families learnt from the tragedy, finally putting their differences aside. Shakespeare was effective in what he was trying to achieve which was to show that minor feuds can turn into much bigger ones and ultimately led to deaths and tragedies. Although the play is enjoyable to read or watch, it ends shockingly.