How Does Shakespeare Show the Role of Anger to the Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet

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English- Romeo and Juliet controlled assessment “How does Shakespeare show the role of anger to the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet?” In this essay I will be looking at Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. Shakespeare was a famous playwright and poet of the 16th century whose works include 38 plays, 154 sonnets and 2 narrative poems. He was born in 1564 and died in 1616. Romeo and Juliet was one of his earliest plays which follow the story of two star crossed lovers whose deaths reconcile their feuding families. In my essay I will be exploring how Shakespeare shows the role of anger to the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. I will do this by choosing a few themes related to anger and analysing them. The main characters I will look at are Romeo, Juliet, Tybalt and Capulet. Hate is one of the most pivotal themes in the play that relates to anger. The play starts off with the prologue outlining what has happened in Verona. Shakespeare used Verona as the setting for his play as it was known to be a place of murderous feuds and passionate love affairs. The prologue immediately introduces us to the feud and hatred shared between the two families, Capulet’s and Montague’s. “From ancient grudge break to new mutiny”. Here the audience is left with an unanswered question as to how the feud started and from the prologue we are left wondering if anger and hate will lead to the death of the two “ star crossed lovers”. The prologue also contains many oxymorons such as “civil” and “blood”.shakespeare uses these oxymorons to show contradicting ideas which the play is full of. The play begins with a fight between the servants of both families. Shakespeare does this to show the immense hatred that is shared between both families as even the servants get involved and to set the scene for violence and bloodshed. In act 1 scene 5 we see the hatred between the two families through the

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