Romeo And Juliet : Creation Of Drama Essay, Research Paper

An enormous amount of drama is created in Shakespeare´s play, ‘Romeo and Juliet´, in Act 3, scene 5 and in many others as well. The drama is being created in many different ways, by each character. There are two main types of drama that are used throughout the play to create drama; these are the use of suspense and the pace at which some of the characters act.

The drama around Juliet is created by her father, Lord Capulet, her mother, Lady Capulet, and her nurse, and is created using different methods at different intervals in the act I am studying and in many others.

I am going to show how the nurse in the play creates drama around Juliet first; this is because she seemed in the play to have a closer relationship to Juliet than her mother or father.

The nurse treats Juliet almost as her own child, this idea is put forward as the nurse had been Juliet´s main parental model as she had been nursing her since a very young age. Even though the nurse mourns the loss of her own daughter and her husband, she makes many sexual jokes throughout the play, which indicates a more laid back personality. The nurse creates drama through how talkative she is, and how playful she is even in the harder of situations, and seems to be very jovial.

Although the nurse had looked after Juliet for so many years, and the relationship they shared after years of being together, drama is created in the play when the nurse has a change of heart towards Juliet, and with her plain ‘black and white´ look on life. Throughout this scene, the nurse rapidly changes her mind of Juliet´s marriage with Romeo, and urges her to marry count Paris, as this would please her parents and stop any trouble from brewing. This is shown when the nurse says, “I think it is best you married the county”.

At the beginning of the scene the nurse, along with Juliet, were the only two people that could see that names did not, and should not matter when it comes down to true love. I think that the nurse creates drama with the audience/reader here as she seems to be Juliet´s best friend and likes to help in any problems until near the end of the scene when she turns on the friendship to try and persuade Juliet to do what her parents think is right instead of doing what she thought was right. I think that the audience would take a dim view on the nurse at this point for turning on such a good relationship. This act almost gets the audience involved in the play as they start thinking what would they have done in her position, and whether they think what she has done is right.

It seems that the nurse uses very simple and common language, which maybe shows her status in the household compared to Lady and Lord Capulet.

In Act 2 Scene 5, drama is created by a certain dramatic trait, the use of suspense, which is mixed with dramatic irony when Juliet returns to the nurse with Romeo´s plans for marriage.

Lady Capulet however uses very extravagant language showing her upper class status in society, yet she does not really have a very good relationship with Juliet and needs the nurse at many important stages throughout the play.

She seems to over-react to situations either that people disagree with her about or that she does not control. This maybe due to the death of Tybalt but other examples in the play can be found.

Juliet turns to her mother is desperation when Lord Capulet shouts and gets angry with Juliet not wanting to marry Paris. She says to her mother, “Or if you do not, make the bridal bed in that dim monument where Tybalt lies”. This shows her devotion to Romeo to the audience but to her mother and father this would show a sign of stubbornness. This part of the scene is very dramatic because of the pace, and how tempers rise between members of the family.

When Lady Capulet says, “We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not”, it adds drama to the play as it shows how serious she is being at that point, and she uses over-elaborate words that others may not choose to use in a normal conversation.

Drama is also created when she says, “Shall give him such an unaccustomed dram that he shall soon keep Tybalt Company.” This is because she is showing her feelings towards Romeo, and saying that if she ever finds him she will kill him and he will join Tybalt in his grave.

When Juliet and Lady Capulet are having a conversation of Romeo (line 75-102) there is a use of double entendre by Juliet. This double meaning adds a bit more drama and excitement to this part of the play as the audience know Juliet is talking of her love fore Romeo, whereas her mother thinks she is speaking of Romeo in a disapproving manner. This is the main part of Juliet´s and Lady Capulet´s speeches in those lines which shows the double meanings clearly, Lady Capulet says “That is because the traitor murderer lives.”

Juliet replies with, “Ay, madam, from the reach of these my hands”.

Lady Capulet also vows to send a man to Mantua to have Romeo killed, “We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not; Then weep no more. I´ll send to one in Mantua”. This adds drama as the audience become anxious and excited to see if she carries out her plan and has Romeo killed.

Throughout the play, Lady Capulet makes many speeches aimed at Juliet, some of these more vital than others, like sending a man to kill Romeo. It comes to mind that she thinks that Tybalt´s death has affected her the most out of everyone as she does not think he was punished accordingly for the crime committed.

Lord Capulet is very temperamental and seems to care a vast amount for the welfare of his only daughter. He creates a lot of drama through the play with his strong and dramatic language. His lines were written to show he is an important figurehead and is in control of everything in the house.

He seemed to have two extremes of personality depending when he was being questioned or if it was affecting him greatly.

He told Juliet she would marry Paris, “The County Paris, at Saint Peters church, shall happily make thee there a joyful bride”. When Juliet refused to marry Paris Capulet´s mood changed dramatically, this made this part of the play much more dramatic and exciting. Capulet used his strong language to threaten and insult Juliet; he made such comments as, “Hang thee, young baggage, disobedient wretch!” Capulet’s strong language in this scene showed his superiority over Juliet. At first, he seems as though he cared about Juliet when she was crying, but he soon became almost uncontrollable in anger. This differs greatly to his temper nearer the beginning of the play when Romeo turned up to the ball, and Capulet stopped Tybalt making a scene because of the different names they possessed. In this part of the play, he seemed very calm and relaxed and as though he did not care about names that night, he just wanted things to run smoothly.

Overall, drama is created mainly by the use of suspense and the strength of the language used by different characters at different parts of the play, especially when that mood is not expected to be shown in that part. I have also concluded that a character´s language was written to suit the image of them to others and to make the play interesting and exciting throughout.