Skip to main content

What three passages in Romeo and Juliet portray the role of disorder and hatred as well as the consequences?

The beginning of Act I, Scene 1 is a prime example of the hatred and disorder which is prevalent on the streets of Verona because of the bitter feud between the Montagues and Capulets. The Capulet servants, Gregory and Sampson, have nothing better to do than walk the streets describing how they would like to rape the Montague women and, when they come across the Montague servants, are quick to resort to demeaning insults (biting their thumbs) in order to instigate a fight. The hatred is increased when Tybalt, Juliet's cousin, comes on the scene and threatens to kill Benvolio, who is attempting to calm the situation. Rather than agree to peace, Tybalt expresses his intense acrimony:




What, drawn and talk of peace? I hate the word
As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee.
Have at thee, coward!



The brawl is eventually broken up when the Prince arrives on the scene. The consequence of this disorder is that the Prince declares that further fighting in the streets will be punished by death:





If ever you disturb our streets again,
Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.





Hatred again rears its head in Act I, Scene 5 as Tybalt becomes enraged at hearing the voice of Romeo at Capulet's party. Once he recognizes Romeo, who is wearing a mask, he becomes disorderly, calling for his sword and alerting Lord Capulet to the situation. Tybalt is perfectly willing to disrupt the party and challenge Romeo. Lord Capulet, however, is unwilling to have his party destroyed by the feud, but it takes some convincing to get Tybalt to back down:





He shall be endured.
What, goodman boy? I say he shall. Go to.
Am I the master here or you? Go to.
You’ll not endure him! God shall mend my soul,
You’ll make a mutiny among my guests,
You will set cock-a-hoop, you’ll be the man!





The consequence of this episode comes later. Tybalt, not able to engage Romeo, sends a letter to the Montagues, challenging Romeo. This challenge comes to fruition in Act III, Scene 1.



As in Act I, Benvolio is the voice of reason as he urges Mercutio to get off the street and to avoid a confrontation with the Capulets. Once Tybalt enters the scene, however, disorder rules the day. He and Mercutio trade insults and when Romeo arrives, Tybalt is ready to fight. Romeo, who has just married Juliet, is quick to back down, telling Tybalt that he actually loves him. Mercutio, who knows nothing of Romeo's relationship with Juliet, cannot stand this acquiescence and challenges Tybalt himself:





O calm, dishonorable, vile submission!
Alla stoccato carries it away.
Tybalt, you ratcatcher, will you walk?





The fight between the two ends with Mercutio killed. Romeo, in a fit of hatred and revenge, assaults Tybalt and kills him. The consequences include two dead men and Romeo banished. Instead of wielding the death penalty against Romeo, the Prince has mercy and simply banishes him from Verona because of the nature of the conflict.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

Chuchundra, the sniveling, fearful muskrat who creeps around walls because he is too terrified to go into the center of a room, meets Rikki in the middle of the night. He insults Rikki by begging him not to kill him. He then insults him by suggesting that Nag might mistake Chuchundra for Rikki. He says, "Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes."  He issues this warning to Rikki not to help keep Rikki safe but as a way of explaining why Rikki's presence gives him, Chuchundra, more reason to fear.  Chuchundra starts to tell Rikki what Chua the rat told him--but breaks it off when he realizes he might be overheard by Nag. He says, "Nag is everywhere, Rikki-Tikki." Rikki threatens to bite Chuchundra to get him to talk. Even then, Chuchundra won't overtly reveal any information. But he does say, "Can't you hear, Rikki-Tikki?" This is enough of a clue for the clever mongoose. He listens carefully and can just make out the "faintest scratch-s...
Post a Comment
Read more