dove in the middle of a flock of crows. In gazing upon Juliet, Romeo now realizes that he never saw true beauty until this night.

For her part, Juliet is no less smitten by Romeo. Not long after he approaches her for the first time, they start to kiss. What's notable here is that neither of them yet know each other's names, or, more crucially, that they are on opposite sides of the bitter feud between the Montagues and the Capulets. But this only serves to show that the love that has immediately developed between Romeo and Juliet is the real thing.

From the very beginning of Act 3, it is made clear that things are amiss. Benvolio warns the weather is conducive to a fight and suggests they should leave the area. This makes the scene dramatic.  

BEN: I pray thee, good Mercutio, let's retire. / The day is hot, the Capulets abroad. / And if we meet, we shall not scape a brawl, For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring. (III.i.1-4) 

However, they do not leave. Mercutio scoffs at Benvolio's suggestion they should depart. This, of course, costs Mercutio his life. Mercutio's death is the first literal death in the play. There have been metaphoric deaths, like the death of Romeo's love for Rosaline, but no literal deaths until the third act. 

MER: A plague o’ both your houses! I am sped.(III.i.90)

Mercutio famously calls a plague on both the Montagues and Capulets, which comes true. This is the most dramatic point in Act 3, Scene 1. Mercutio's call for a plague foreshadows the rest of the play, as well as hints back to the prologue that suggested the deaths that would follow. This line is crucial and is intertwined with many dramatic devices, like foreshadowing, catharsis and dramatic irony.

Act 3, scene 1 is a powerful moment in the play because it includes the deaths of two prominent characters (Mercutio and Tybalt) and because it is the moment when Romeo is exiled from Verona and must, therefore, leave Juliet.

The two deaths occur in the second half of the scene, and these climactic deaths are made all the more powerful and dramatic by the contrast of the comical mood established at the beginning of the scene.

At the beginning of the scene, Mercutio taunts the Capulets using lots of sexual innuendo. For example, when Tybalt asks for "a word," Mercutio replies with, "Make it a word and a blow." Mercutio then asks Tybalt, "Could you not take some occasion without giving?" In both of these instances, Mercutio is using sexual innuendo to imply that Tybalt is homosexual. A "blow" and "giving" are thinly-veiled references to sexual acts between two men, intended to make the Montagues, and probably the audience too, laugh at Tybalt. This humor, of course, depends upon homophobic attitudes.

When the shocking deaths occur later in the scene, they are all the more powerful because of the sharp contrast with the comic mood established at the beginning of the scene.

At the end of the scene, after Romeo has killed Tybalt, the Prince proclaims, "Let Romeo hence in haste, / Else, when he's found, that hour is his last." This is a powerful, dramatic climax to the scene because Romeo's life is in danger and because he now must be separated from Juliet. This separation makes Romeo desperate and irrational, and it drives forward the rest of the plot.

In act 3, scene 5, Romeo and Juliet have consummated their marriage. Romeo, in the early morning as the scene begins, must leave for exile in Mantua or be killed. As he leaves, Juliet says,

O God, I have an ill-divining soul!
Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb.

Juliet's mother comes in to tell her that her father has decided she will marry Paris. Juliet refuses until her father threatens to cast her off. Her nurse counsels her to pretend she never married Romeo and go through with the wedding to Paris. Juliet decides to go see the friar for a possible solution, and barring that, to kill herself.

This is a turning point in the play for several reasons. In the Renaissance, a marriage was not fully legal until consummated, so it is not until this scene that two can be said to be fully wed. But more importantly, Juliet is faced with a "turning point" decision. It is up to her to decide whether to go along with marrying Paris and forget Romeo and all the complications he represents or to seek another way.

She seeks another way. Her breaking fully with her nurse and her parents, all the figures who have raised her, shows her declaring her independence and her agency. She can no longer have it both ways, being a seemingly good Capulet and married to a Montague. When Juliet decides to stick with Romeo, the die is cast, and the rest of the tragedy then unfolds step by step, with Juliet's grim foreshadowing of death hanging over her decision.