Discussion Topic
Rising Action in Romeo and Juliet
Summary:
The rising action in Romeo and Juliet involves a series of events that build tension and suspense, setting the stage for the play's tragic climax. It begins with Romeo meeting Juliet at the Capulet party, despite the feud between their families. Their secret love leads to a hasty marriage. Tensions escalate when Romeo kills Tybalt, Juliet's cousin, leading to his banishment. These events heighten the conflict, ultimately culminating in the tragic deaths of the young lovers.
What is the rising action in Romeo and Juliet?
Rising action in a plot is a series of relevant incidents that create suspense, interest and tension in a narrative. In literary works, the rising action includes all decisions, characters' flaws, and background circumstances that together create turns and twists leading to the climax.
The rising action of Romeo and Juliet is the series of incidents that generate suspense and interest occurring after the exposition with its introduction of characters and situation. These incidents follow the exciting force, and they create the tensions which lead to the climax in Act III involving Mercutio, Romeo, and Tybalt that results in Mercutio's and Tybalt's deaths.
Exciting Force:
- After being rejected by Rosaline, Romeo agrees to accompany his friends to the celebration of Juliet's birthday, which is held at the home of his family's enemy, the Capulets.
- There he sees Juliet and is completely captivated by her, exclaiming that...
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- her beauty dazzles him
Like a rich jewel in an Ethop's ear--
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!(1.5.44-45)
Rising Action:
- Risking recognition by the Capulets, Romeo approaches Juliet and speaks to her. He is even so bold as to kiss her.
- After the masque is finished, Mercutio and Benvolio search for Romeo, but he hides from them.
- Romeo scales the walls of the Capulet orchard and stands under the balcony of Juliet's chambers.
- When Juliet discovers Romeo, she is embarrassed that he has heard her wonder aloud on her balcony why the names Montague and Capulet must determine a person's fate.
- Romeo vows to change his name for Juliet and they declare their love for one another. Yet, Juliet fears the dangers of this declaration:
I have no joy of this contract tonight.
It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden.
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
Ere one can say, "It lightens." (2.2.116-119)
- Romeo, too, is anxious as he expresses his fear that because it is night, he may just be dreaming--"all this is but a dream"--and all is too good to be real.
- Juliet promises to marry Romeo.
- He is aware that they must marry secretly, so he rushes to the cell of Friar Lawrence. (Act II, Scene 6)
- Friar Lawrence is surprised at the change in Romeo, whom he has believed to love Rosaline.
- Romeo asks the priest not to scold him; he says that Juliet returns his love whereas Rosaline has rejected him.
- After some thought, Friar Lawrence believes that a marriage between Romeo and Juliet may reconcile the two families, so he agrees to perform the marriage rites for the two young lovers.
The action and conflicts of Act I, Scene 5, and all of Act II comprise the rising action of Romeo and Juliet. During these scenes, conflicts and tension are generated and they arise from the exciting force of Romeo's meeting Juliet.
The falling action of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, as in any other play, is determined by the climax of the play.
Most scholars agree that the climax of Romeo and Juliet occurs when Romeo kills Tybalt in act 3, scene 1. This is a major turning point in the play and in the lives of Romeo and Juliet. Romeo is banished from Verona, and goes to Mantua. Juliet must contend with Romeo's banishment, the death of her cousin, Tybalt, and her parents' insistence that she marry Paris.
From this point in the play, all of the major conflicts of the play start to be resolved, which is the falling action of the play.
Friar Laurence devises a plan by which Juliet will avoid having to marry Paris, and Romeo and Juliet will be reunited.
Friar Laurence gives Juliet a potion that will cause her to appear to be dead, and that she'll be buried in the Capulet's tomb. After forty-two hours, Juliet will recover from the potion, and Romeo will be there to take her from her tomb and to Mantua.
In the meantime, Friar Laurence will send a letter to Romeo telling him about the plan, so that Romeo can come back to Verona, rescue Juliet from the tomb after Juliet recovers from the potion, and return with her to Mantua so they can spend the rest of their lives together.
Juliet performs her part of the plan flawlessly, but Romeo doesn't receives Friar Laurence's letter, which causes serious complications for Romeo and Juliet.
This leads to the resolution (or denouement) of the play. Romeo returns to Verona to Juliet's tomb too early, finds Juliet still apparently dead, and Romeo kills himself. Juliet recovers from the potion, finds Romeo dead beside her, and kills herself.
Some scholars contend that the climax of Romeo and Juliet occurs when Romeo and Juliet kill themselves in act 5, scene 3.
The falling action includes the finding of Romeo and Juliet already dead, and Friar Laurence's explanation of the unfortunate events that led to Romeo and Juliet's deaths. Friar Laurence, the Prince, the Capulets, and the Montagues all blame themselves for Romeo and Juliet's deaths.
The resolution of the play is the Montague and Capulet's decision to end their feud.
Shakespeare wastes no time in establishing the tragic nature of the story that is to come, writing in the opening lines of the feud between the families and how it will ultimately end only with the death of a beloved member of each family.
From forth the loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventur'd piteous overthrows,
Doth with their death bury their parents' strife
Thus readers and/or viewers of the play are drawn immediately into the soap-opera like story that will unfold. The Capulets hate the Montagues, and vice versa, and in a moment of youthful indiscretion, or maybe better described as a prank of sorts, Romeo and his buddies put on masks and "crash" the Capulet party. There he meets, falls in love with, and fairly quickly marries Juliet Capulet. His timing, however, is unfortunate, as he returns from his private nuptials to find Tybalt, a Capulet cousin, fighting to the death with Mercutio, his best friend. Tybalt kills Mercutio, Romeo kills Tybalt, remembers all too late that he has killed his new wife's cousin, and runs to the local apothecary for help. This, then, is the beginning of the rising action that will lead to poor decision making on the part of the Friar, and a horrific ironic twist in which Juliet's faked death is not communicated to Romeo, who in a most un-fake way, kills himself; when the young bride wakes up and discovers that Romeo is newly dead, the play reaches its stunning climax as she plunges a dagger into her breast and ends it all.