Discussion Topic
Shakespeare's techniques for maintaining audience engagement in Romeo and Juliet despite the known tragic outcome
Summary:
Shakespeare maintains audience engagement in Romeo and Juliet through dynamic characters, suspenseful plot twists, and vivid language. By developing a deep emotional connection to the protagonists and crafting unexpected turns in the storyline, he keeps the audience invested despite the known tragic outcome. Additionally, his use of poetic dialogue and dramatic irony sustains interest and tension throughout the play.
How does Shakespeare keep the audience engaged in Romeo and Juliet despite revealing the ending in the prologue?
I think that the opening characterization of Romeo and Juliet as "star- crossed lovers" does much to enhance the characterization in the Prologue . Understanding that the protagonists are "fated" to a great extent enables our interest to be piqued. With stating that the death of both young lovers will "bury their parents' strife," Shakespeare has been able to clearly establish that the characterizations offered will be fundamentally different than what the current setting offers. In this, the characterization offered is more of what can be as opposed to what is. This is an element in which interest is maintained. The audience becomes engaged in seeing how the characterizations offered will be so fundamentally different than the setting in which they live. The audience realizes that the end will be tragic. Yet, there is interest in seeing how this will come about. There is something uniquely distinctive about characters who...
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wish to see more of what can be in a condition that is bound only to display what is. In this, there is challenge and difficulty. Through this, there is interest maintained and this is how characterization in the Prologue is able to sustain audience interest even though the ending is clearly evident.
I think that one way Shakespeare holds the interest through the use of thematic development in the Prologue is by simply summarizing the drama for the audience. Through the Prologue, the audience absolutely knows how this is going to turn out and what will happen. Yet, it's the development of the themes of love and subjectivity within external reality that holds the audience's interest. The idea of "star- crossed lovers" helps to hold the fascination of the audience with its assertion that what is experienced internally is not shared externally. The "grudge to mutiny" element helps to hold the audience's interest in showing how such a collision between subjective and external will unfold. For Shakespeare, the Prologue is used to outline how the drama's themes will unfold. Even though the audience knows what will happen, interest is maintained to see how these themes will reveal themselves. In the traditional sense, love was seen as the force of redemption. One way in which Shakespeare uses the Prologue the hold the reader's interest is to use it as the theme of the drama. The "mend" that ends the Prologue might serve as a way for Shakespeare to openly claim that while the theme of love will not end happily, it will be displayed in such a manner that one can better understand it. In doing so, interest is piqued using themes that the reader can appreciate and anticipate in the course of the drama. The Prologue establishes this at the outset.
This is a great question, as really any audience should ask themselves what the point is of watching a play where the ending is made clear in the very first scene. Note what the Chorus tells the audience as the play opens:
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star=crossed lovers take their life
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.
After hearing this, why listen on? However, Shakespeare manages to use techniques that have been adopted by playwrights and screenwriters throughout the centuries to engage and manipulate the audience into wanting to stay and watch what happens. Even though the audience is told in the opening scene how the play will end, Shakespeare deliberately raises the hopes of his audience by tantalising them with the possibility that it might actually work out for Romeo and Juliet, and clearly makes the audience feel sympathy for these two tragic characters. The audience are made to actively want Romeo and Juliet to take on fate and win, and it is this hope that keeps them entranced by the action that takes place before them. This is the technique that Shakespeare uses to maintain his audience's interest, even though the audience knows how the play will end.
I have a theory on the prologue. I think Shakespeare wanted to tell us that things were going to end in tragedy so that we would be prepared, and we would know what was going to happen and therefore follow his message a little better.
Shakespeare prepares us for the story.
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. (Act 1 Prologue)
There is no mystery that Romeo and Juliet are doomed. We can’t wait to find out HOW they are doomed though. Since we are not shocked by that, we can take full advantage of the foreshadowing and follow their destruction from beginning to end. It is clear that the two families need to end the feud. We are anxious to find out how.
Informing the audience of the ending at the opening of a piece of dramatic narrative is not uncommon. This technique creates anticipation and suspense, very simply, by telling us what to expect.
This mode of creating anticipation is not unlike dramatic irony. In both cases the audience is provided with knowledge that some (or all) characters do not possess. This puts the audience into a special and often exciting relationship to both the action and the characters of a narrative.
Hitchcock used his technique often in his films - ex., Rope & Frenzy.
How does Shakespeare's use of language keep readers engaged in Romeo and Juliet, despite the outcome being known from the prologue?
Although we know what is going to happen, we don’t know exactly how it will happen. Shakespeare’s beautiful and hilarious speeches keep us engaged.
There is a lot of beautiful language in the play. Some of it is very romantic and enthralling. Consider Romeo and Juliet’s first encounter.
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.(105) (Act 1, Scene 5, p. 32)
This exchange is part of the lovely conversation between Romeo and Juliet, which some scholars have considered a shared sonnet. This establishes Romeo and Juliet as star-crossed, since they instantly fall in love and finish each other’s thoughts, but it also makes the viewer teary.
Shakespeare’s plays were often performed in front of large crowds, so of course there had to be some bawdy locker room talk. This will keep the viewer entertained and laughing. The Nurse and Mercutio are usually the ones who use sexual innuendo.
And then my husband ….took up the child.
‘Yea,’ quoth he, ‘dost thou fall upon thy face?(45)
Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;
Wilt thou not, Jule?’ (Act 1, Scene 3, p. 23)
Shakespeare’s audience would have found these references to sex hilarious, and most modern viewers will still smile even though it’s kind of inappropriate.
Finally, there are some speeches that are both witty and not sexual. Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech is engaging and witty without being too coarse.
She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate stone(60)
On the forefinger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep; (Act 1, Scene 4, p. 27)
With speeches like these, both romantic and funny, Shakespeare keeps us engaged throughout the play.