Discussion Topic

Analysis of mood and imagery in various scenes of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

Summary:

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet uses mood and imagery to enhance the emotional depth of the play. The romantic balcony scene is filled with light and celestial imagery, creating a mood of idealistic love. In contrast, the tomb scene is dark and foreboding, with imagery of death and decay, establishing a tragic and somber mood. These elements emphasize the intense emotions and themes throughout the play.

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In Romeo and Juliet, how does the imagery in Act 3, Scene 2 affect the mood?

Before I answer this question regarding William Shakespeare's tragedyRomeo and Juliet, let's review these two key literary terms: 

Imagery:
A literary device that evokes the senses of the reader using descriptive language. Note: this is not solely visual - language that evokes any sense is visual

Mood:
A literary term for the reader's response to a text

I'll provide you with a few quotations and some brief analysis: 

  • "Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, / Towards Phoebus’ lodging: such a wagoner / As Phaethon would whip you to the west, / And bring in cloudy night immediately" (III.ii)
    Juliet paints a picture of a chariot led by horses moving so fast that their hooves generate heat. The image is an allusion to myths regarding the sun and the end of the day. Her imagery evokes urgency and anticipation. 
  • "Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical! / Dove-feather’d raven! wolvish-ravening...

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  • lamb!"
    Following the nurse's revelation of Tybalt's murder, Juliet shouts contradictions. These allude to her confusion and hurt - her lover has killed a beloved cousin. 
  • "Some word there was, worser than Tybalt’s death, / That murder’d me: I would forget it fain; / But, O, it presses to my memory"
    Juliet personifies the words "Romeo banished", and the image she presents of this now-human phrase is a violent one. She depicts herself being murdered by the words, then describes the words pressing against her memory, or head. These elicit the pain that has overcome Juliet. 
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What is the mood of act 3, scene 3 in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet?

Authors can use different literary devices to either establish an underlying mood throughout the whole work or to create certain shifts in mood. Elements such as diction, imagery, rhetorical schemes, and figures of speech can all be used to create mood. Therefore, when analyzing for mood, it's important to zero in on these devices. We can use these devices to conclude that some of the emotions that characterize the mood of Act 3, Scene 3 are devastation, frustration, and anger.

One thing that helps characterize the mood of this scene is Romeo's reaction to his banishment. Friar Laurence wants him to view it as it is, a blessing, while Romeo is bent on viewing it as torture. Romeo's mood and perspective is especially portrayed in Shakespeare's use of imagery and the parallelism in Romeo's lines:

There is no world without Verona walls;
But purgatory, torture, hell itself.
Hence banished is banish'd from the world,
and world's exile is death. (III.iii.18-20)

Romeo's choice to relate being banished to the images of "torture" and "hell" certainly help portray his devastated mood. But these lines are especially effective because of the parallelism in Romeo's argument. Romeo's first clause of the first line speaks of being banished in the phrase "without Verona walls," which he relates to hell in the second clause. In the first clause of the second sentence, he again speaks of banishment in the phrase "banish'd from the world" while ending with a second clause about death. Since one can't reach hell without dying, Romeo has created a perfectly even, perfectly parallel argument.

However, the scene's mood is characterized by more than just Romeo's feelings of hopelessness. It is also characterized by the anger and frustration Friar Laurence feels towards Romeo. His anger and frustration can especially be seen in the diction Shakespeare chose for the line, "O deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness!" (25). Friar Laurence is calling Romeo's reaction a deadly sin because it is vain and arrogant to call God's gifts of mercy torture. Hence, Shakespeare's word choices for Friar Laurence's description of Romeo help us to see the friar's mood of anger. We further see the friar's reaction in his line, "This is dear mercy, and thou seest it not," showing us that the friar certainly considers Romeo's sentence to be a gift worth being happy for (25).

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