Bubonic Plague In Elizabethan Times

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Shakespeare’s time Elizabethan England was a place where violence could erupt at any moment one’s whole family could die of sickness in the night. In Shakespeare’s plays he talks about a lot about these types of things that were going on in his time. One example is his play Romeo and Juliet. Were he talks about the fear of the black plague, how arranged marriages affected family’s, and how violence affects the people of this time. One way Shakespeare showed what was happening in his time period was including the bubonic plague in some of his works the bubonic plague. Sara Ann Migill talk about the bubonic plague in here paper black plague. “The black plague ravaged middle eastern Europe during the 1350’s. The disease killed approximately…show more content…
Therefore, people just take the marriage like a set of duties and obligations. Both the bride and groom have certain responsibilities, the biggest duty is to have children and raise them according to society’s customs and religious teachings. For this reason, both parties are very careful about what they say or do and no one wants to be blamed for the failure of the marriage. In fact, to end a marriage would result in disgrace and excommunication from your family. In “Romeo and Juliet”, Juliet’s father, “Lord Capulet”, threatens Juliet by saying “An you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend; a you be not, hang, beg, die, starve in the streets, for by my soul, I’ll never acknowledge thee, nor what is mine shall never do thee good. Trust to’t” Juliet did not like this arranged marriage to Paris because she was in love with Romeo. Juliet goes to confession to talk to Friar Lawrence at the church about displeasing her father and threatens to kill herself if he does not help her. Friar says “if thou host hast the strength of will to slay thyself take thou this vial no warmth, no breath shall testify thou livest”. Juliet goes back home and apologies to her father about yelling at him and agrees to the arranged marriage in essence, Juliet drinks the vial and everyone thinks she’s dead, Romeo breaks into the tomb and kills himself and then Juliet does the same thing. Women’s rights in the…show more content…
In Elizabethan England, there were two classes, the nobility, or the Upper Class, and the Lower Class, which was basically everyone else. As such, punishment varies accordingly. For instance, since the nobility was associated with political matters of Religion, their crimes could include high treason, blasphemy, sedition, spying, rebellion, murder, witchcraft, and alchemy to name a few. “Various means of tortures were used to extract confessions for crime. Women did not escape torture and punishment during this violent era - Anne Askew was put to the rack for her religious beliefs, and subsequently died, during the reign of Elizabeth's father King Henry VIII.” (William Shakespeare info) This shows that all classes were punished for their crimes, not just the lower class. The nobility could not escape punishment, however they are automatically exempt from torture but other courtiers were not. In Romeo and Juliet, violence is portrayed as universal. To portray the image of violence in the characters, Shakespeare has the Prince recite a monologue to the fighters… “...You men, you beasts, that quench the fire of your pernicious rage with purple fountains issuing from your veins, on pain of torture, from those bloody hands throw your distempered weapons to the ground and hear the sentence of your moved prince. three civil brawls, bred of an airy word, by thee, old Capulet, and Montague,
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