Queen Mab Essay

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Draft Essay Look closely at Mercutio’s Queen Mab Speech. Are dreams depicted as dangerous or attractive? Written within the Elizabethan ear, one of the most remembered scenes of the classic ‘Romeo and Juliet’ was the Queen Mab Speech, beautifully narrated by Mercutio. A text immersed with different frame of reference, to a degree filled with unearthly and majestic beings that bring joy, and on the other hand brimming with the cruelty of a mere nightmare. The fairy tale has become into something much darker, though this dark vision is a portrayal of society. As during that period of time women did not a have the same independence and equality of men. This is a very debateable aspect. In this essay we will look at what Mercutio’s Queen Mab Speech as been depicted in both the dangerous and attractive sides. Later on concluding how the dreams relate to wider motifs such as the main example of love. Presented to us by the form of personification, the imagery portrays scenery of spring from the patterned choices of earthly wood creatures, “Wings of a grasshoppers”, “spider’s web”, “Crickets bones” etc. And the illusion of spring because it gives an idea that animals are come out of hibernating, the need to start something new, also a message that Mercutio is trying to tell Romeo to get over Rosaline and look for other women . Danger is also betrayed in the way Mab uses insects which usually don’t condemn beauty such as spiders that are the most terrifying to humans, they are usually presented as a very cruel, scary insect and cricket’s however there was no reference to butterflies which usually symbolize love in a more conventional manner. But through the Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech the terrifying insects are betrayed as a symbolism of spring and the growth of new beginnings .The imagery suggests wide openings of forests. Almost magical through the implying of
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