Light And Dark

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Bobby The Difference and Similarity between Light and Dark Light and dark have very different meanings in everyday language. Traditionally, light is considered to be all "good" and dark is considered to be all "evil." However as Scholar Caroline Spurgeon once wrote "In Romeo and Juliet …the dominating image is light, every form and manifestation of it; the sun, moon, stars, fire, lightning, the flash of gunpowder, and the reflected light of beauty and of love; while by contrast we have night, darkness, clouds, rain, mist, and smoke." In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, light and dark imagery represent the forces that push the young lovers apart and pulls them together again. In the beginning of Romeo and Juliet's relationship, light imagery can be seen as representing love and beauty, but it soon turns into an enemy of Romeo and Juliet's relationship. For example, when Romeo first sees Juliet at Capulet's party, he compares her to the torches in the hall, and says " O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!/ It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night/ Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear"(1.5.46-48). Juliet is the light that frees Romeo from the melancholy of Rosaline's unrequited love. Her beauty is compared to the captivating, elemental power of fire and she is even brighter in contrast of the darkness of the night and the darkness of an "Ethiopian." Another example, Juliet compares their relationship to lightning by stating " It is too rash, too unadvis'd, too sudden;/ too like the lightning, which doth cease to be/ Ere one can say it lightens" (2.2.124-126). Here, their love is sudden, like lightning and it lights up a dark world where every action they take is controlled by other members of their family. This quote also gives a foreshadowing of the tragedies that will occur later in the play due to hasty and rash decisions. However, despite all of
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