PUNS & ALLUSIONS
Three allusions found
.1. “Part fools! Put up your swords; you know not what you do” & “you know not what
you do ”Benovolio says this while he interrupted a fight, and it seems he is referring to
the Bible. From this we can see that Benvolio is a holy person and in reality he might
be trying to prevent a fight, he doesn’t want any harm to be done.
2. One time Juliet states the following frase ““Bondage is hoarse and may not speak
aloud, Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies”. This frase is referring to Echo
(nymph) and she/he wasn’t able to speak, only repeat what was heard when others
talked to her/him. In Echo’s “story” he falls in love with someone that died for the vow
he took of never falling in love, so she slowly died alone living all her life in pain due to
never being loved. This is very similar to what happened in Romeo and Juliet, because
Juliet suffered when Romeo “committed” suicide and then she killed herself.
3. Romeo states : “Well, in that hit you miss. She’ll not be hit with Cupid’s arrow…
From Love’s feel childish bow she lives uncharmed”. In this part they are referring to
Cupid, so if he shot you with his arrow then you fell in love with someone, the first
person in sight. So here is saying that Juliet won’t “let Cupid’s arrows get to her”,
basically she doesn’t want them near her.
3 Puns:
1. Mercutio was wounded, and he was dying, so he said he will be put in a grave, like
a grave that is placed in the ground when someone passes away. He says “tomorrow
you will find me a grave man”.
2. Romeo is referring to the light of a torch when he says “Give me a torch. I am not for
this ambling. Being but heavy, I will bear the light”
3. Romeo states or refers to the words sole and soul in the book. He is making a
reference to the gentle feeling of the sole of his shoes, and how it contrasts with the
heavy feeling in his soul. “Not I, believe me. You have dancing shoes with nimble
soles.
Puns with relation to my book
The first pun, when it explains that Mercutio is dying “tomorrow you will find me a
grave man”, is talking about putting him in the ground, his grave. In my book, at the
beginning, they had to bury one of the main characters because she had been
murdered. So this relates to my book because in both situations they are talking about
placing people in their graves.
The second pun, is talking about the torch, so I inferred that he needs the torch to see
and be able to complete his “mission”. In my book, they are looking for a flash light
because they need to find a cover for a 4-wheeler. So in both cases they describe the
use of a light or something that will help them see.
The third pun, talks about how gentle the sole of his foot is in comparison to how
heavy his soul is. The part where they describe the sole of his foot doesn’t really relate
to my book, but the part where they describe how heavy his soul is describes how
Joshua felt after they buried Helen. He wasn’t agreeing with his other friends that said
they had to bury her and erase the evidence, he wanted to get help from the police but
he couldn’t. So he stayed with a very heavy feeling of guilt in his soul for quite a long
time.
How 2 of the allusions fit with my book
1. “Part fools! Put up your swords; you know not what you do” & “you know not
what you do ” In this part, as I discussed earlier, describes that Benvolio is a
holy person, and this relates exactly to one of the characters in my book,
Joshua. He is also an extremely holy person.
2. “Bondage is hoarse and may not speak aloud, Else would I tear the cave where
Echo lies”. Here it says that Echo was cursed and that is why she/he cant
speak, but only speak the same words that others tell her/him. This relates to
my book because when Helen was “accidentally” killed, Joshua wanted to tell
the police and find a simple solution, to kind of clean his conscience, but Andy
and Victor were totally against this, so basically Joshua wasn’t able to speak of
that night, he wasn’t able to explain what really had happened to anyone. The
only thing he could say was anything that Andy and Victor told him, or anything
the two of them approved of.
Modern Substitutes for the Allusions
Allusion:
“Part fools! Put up your swords; you know not what you do”.
Modern day substitute:
I would make the substitution be the Bible because when he says that he is referring to
the Bible and that book has a huge influence on many of our lives.
Allusion:
“Bondage is hoarse and may not speak aloud, Else would I tear the cave where Echo
lies” is what Juliet says.
Modern Day Substitute:
I would substitute this with a book I read that is similar to Romeo and Juliet, it is about
a girl who loves a boy but her father doesn’t agree with her dating other people.
Original allusion:
When Romeo says “Well, in that hit you miss. She’ll not be hit with Cupid’s arrow…
From Love’s feel childish bow she lives uncharmed”.
Modern Day substitute:
Well first of all, we now know that he is referring to Cupid, which today we see as an
ancient God of “love”. Cupid would pair up people by shooting them with his “love
arrows”. Today’s modern cupid could be compared with a dating website like
“okcupid.com” or “match.com.”