Romeo and Juliet
Acts 2.4-3.1
Love & Passion
Conflict
Imagery (technique not a theme)
Notes about 3.1
Love & Passion
Act 2, Scene 4
Tybalt challenged Romeo to a duel. Romeo sends a message to Juliet about their secret
marriage plans.
• The Nurse agrees to help the lovers’ elopement by lowering a rope ladder from Juliet’s room
for Romeo.
How does the nurse view the theme of love & passion?
• The nurse sees marriage in material terms and believes that Paris’s love for Juliet is on this
level and presumes he is only after Capulet’s money.
Act 2, Scene 6.
• The Friar’s belief about love is that “Too swift as tardy as too slow” (2.6.15).
- This means that people should love moderately, not with too much haste and passion (too
swiftly) nor with too little interest or emotion (too slow).
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Conflict
Act 2, Scene 4
• At the beginning of this scene, we see Romeo and Mercutio giving banter back and forth
– a type of verbal duelling. This duelling between the two prepares the audience for a
different type of duelling later on.
• The comic elements of this scene create a change of atmosphere from the last scene and
a contrast with the next.
Conflict
Act 3, Scene 1
Mercutio picks a fight with Tybalt, who wants to fight Romeo instead. Romeo tries to
prevent the fight, but Mercutio is killed. Romeo kills Tybalt then escapes. Prince Escalus
banishes Romeo from Verona.
• Peace-loving Benvolio attempts to calm Mercutio down and tells him that the day is too
hot, members of the Capulet family are about and they should leave. This is comically
played upon when Mercutio replies that this is poor advice coming from someone as hottempered as Benvolio (who is a natural peacemaker in the play).
• Tybalt and Mercutio quarrel.
 What does this show us about them?
• They are both aggressive characters who will pick fights over nothing.
• As the audience knows, Romeo has just married Juliet and therefore refuses to fight
Tybalt as he is one of her kinsmen (and now, essentially, a part of Romeo’s extended
family). Mercutio cannot understand why Romeo will not fight and believes that he is
submitting to Tybalt’s insults in a shameful way.
Conflict
• Mercutio and Tybalt fight. Mercutio is fatally wounded. Even when he is dying, he
still uses humour, telling Romeo that if he looks for him the next day he will find
him a ‘grave man’ – meaning he will not be making any more jokes because he will
be in his grave.
• Mercutio now leaves the scene, repeating “A plague on both your houses”
(3.1.106).
What does this mean and what significance does it have?
• Feeling guilty for his friend’s death, Romeo seeks revenge on Tybalt. They fight
and he is killed. Benvolio urges Romeo to leave as soon as possible as he will be
given the death penalty if he stays (as Escalus warned them in the beginning of the
play). Romeo is now caught in a trap:
If he runs away, he must leave behind his new wife. If he stays, he must face the
death penalty.
Conflict
• When Lady Capulet hears of Tybalt’s murder, she takes on the violent theme of
the feud and demands that Romeo be given the Death Penalty.
• Her character does not change throughout the play. She remains a hard, unfeeling
woman, unsympathetic and vengeful.
• She is a good example of how single-mindedness and anger can prevent people
from being civilised and tolerant. This is a message constantly found in the play.
• At the end of the scene, the Prince banished Romeo from Verona.
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Fate
Act 2, Scene 4
“Doth not rosemary and Romeo both begin with a letter?” (2.4.201-202).
• What is this trying to say?
• The nurse here connects rosemary with Romeo and says that Juliet is fond of both.
• Later, after the discovery of Juliet’s body, the Friar mentions rosemary in connection with
Juliet. Similarly, later on, the Nurse also casts rosemary on the boy of Juliet.
 Rosemary = flower of remembrance.
How does this tie in with the idea of fate? How would it have made Elizabethan
audiences feel?
Fate
Act 2, Scene 6
• Romeo defies ‘love-devouring death’ (2.6.7) to do whatever it dares.
• The Friar gives his usual lecture about how “These violent delights have violent ends” (2.6.9)
What do you think this means?
• He is saying that the excess of any passion will lead to tragedy – this is prophetic of Romeo and
Juliet’s end.
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Imagery (technique, not a theme)
Act 2, Scene 5
The nurse gives Romeo’s message to the anxious Juliet
• Juliet worries about why the Nurse has been so long. She says:
“Love’s heralds should be thoughts, / Which ten times faster glide than the sun’s beams /
Driving back shadows over louring hills...” (2.5.4-6)
Any ideas what this might be trying to say?
• She is saying that love’s messengers should travel as fast as the sun flickers when
clouds blow over it.
This, again, evokes the light imagery.
Imagery (technique, not a theme)
Act 2, Scene 6
Juliet meets Romeo in Friar Lawrence’s cell. The Friar prepares to marry them.
• We see mouth imagery being used here (and in other places in the play).
• The Friar says that the heavens will ‘smile’ on their marriage.
• By the end of the play the mouth-imagery has turned from ‘smiling heaven’ to the
devouring mouth of the tomb.
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Notes about 3.1
This scene marks the final appearance of Mercutio. After this, our attention is
focussed solely on Romeo and Juliet.
Shakespeare has decided to remove the humorous character of Mercutio to
focus all attention on the tragedy element of the play. He does not want the
comedy to interfere with the tragedy.
This scene is a major turning point in the play and it is appropriate that it
should start with references to heat and passion.
In this scene, Benvolio gives an honest account of what has happened. After
this scene we do not see him again. He is a contrast to two other characters,
Mercutio and Tybalt. With their deaths the contrast and balance of Benvolio’s
character is no longer required. Shakespeare has intentionally removed him
as characters are simply devices. Benvolio is no longer required to convey to
the audience the story, imagery, themes or ideas.
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