Romeo and Juliet Group

Question:

nayema773
nayema773
Student
High School - 10th Grade

Why does Shakespeare begin "Romeo and Juliet" with a brawl?

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Posted by nayema773 on Sunday September 28, 2008 at 12:10 PM and tagged with fighting, introduction, romeo and juliet.

Answers:


  1. malibrarian Teacher
    High School - 12th Grade

    eNotes Editor

    One of the primary themes of Romeo and Juliet is the strife between the houses of Capulet and Montague, which would not allow the two young lovers to ever have a happy ending together.  The Chorus' prologue at the very beginning tells us that they will end their lives because of the hatred between their two families:

    Two households, both alike in dignity,
    In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
    From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
    Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
    From forth the fatal loins of these two foes(5)
    A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
    Whose misadventur'd piteous overthrows
    Doth, with their death, bury their parents’ strife.
    The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
    And the continuance of their parents’ rage,(10)
    Which, but their children's end, naught could remove,
    Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
    The which if you with patient ears attend,
    What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

    Because of this strife, it makes sense that Shakespeare would have started the play (immediately following the Chorus) with a fight between servants of the houses of Capulet and Montague.  He is demonstrating how all-pervasive this feud is, not only for the members of the family, but also for their serving staffs.  This also gives the audience a chance to hear the Prince get involved and tell these warring sides to stop, or else!

    Check the links below for more information!

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/romeo-text/prologue
    http://www.enotes.com/romeo/character-analysis
    http://www.enotes.com/romeo/themes

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    Posted by malibrarian on Sunday September 28, 2008 at 12:18 PM


  2. julian43 Teacher
    High School - 12th Grade

    eNotes Editor

    Why not?  Isn't it such an exciting and dramatic start to the play.

    Remember, Elizabethans were going to the theatre to be entertained, much in the way that you might go to the cinema or to a musical today.

    If a play had no action some people would get bored and feel that the story lacked a sense of real life.

    English society was much closer to violence back then.  There was no police force and arguments might often end up in violence.  Famously, one of Shakespeare's play writing contemporaries, a man called Marlowe, was stabbed and killed in a fight in a pub, just about the time that Shakepeare was writing Romeo and Juliet.

    This is also an exciting opening to the play because there are so many people on stage and there is so much to see. 

    From a plot point of view the fight scene also makes us very aware of the rivalry which exists between two Veronese families at the very start of the play.  Remember it is this rivalry which will make it impossible for Romeo and Juliet to just tell their parents that they love each other and want to marry.  It is this rivalry that leads directly to tragic consequences at the end of the play - to the death of the lovers who are driven to extreme remedies to try and find a future together.

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    Posted by julian43 on Friday December 5, 2008 at 2:06 AM