The mood in Act 2, Scene 2, more commonly known as the balcony scene is based on two different people’s views. Romeo views this as a very passionate exchange, whereas Juliet is filled with fear and concerned. This intense passion is enflamed by the possibility of being caught. This forbidden love between two young souls, a Capulet and a Montague, is made famous from this dialogue of fearful romance, creating a standard for young couples everywhere.
When Romeo first begins his speech to Juliet, he is in this state of ignorant bliss. He sees nothing but Juliet and cares for nothing but her beauty. He is blinded from the danger by the possibility of Juliet’s returned love. This is shown through Shakespeare’s diction, or word choice. He creates a scene where Juliet’s logic based dialogue is contrasting Romeo’s euphoric language. Juliet uses short words that mean business, not using colorful language but rather keeping to a business-like speech. Romeo sees nothing to be serious about, so instead he uses long, descriptive words that keeps the mood flowing. So this state of secret passion is drawn from the way Romeo responds to Juliet and Juliet to Romeo. Juliet’s phrases are concise phrases of concern, fearful more for his safety than for the growth of their passionate “love.” Phrases such as, “How cam’st though hither, tell me, and wherefore?” and, “If they do see thee, they will murder thee.” Otherwise, Romeo uses his eloquent language to “fob off” Juliet’s rebuffs, explaining his reasoning as a feat of love. “With love’s light wings did I o’erperch these walls; for stony limits cannot hold love out,” and “Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye than twenty of their swords.” He is too preoccupied by Juliet that he seems unable to see the very apparent danger, which really influences the mood of passion that, in time, also influences Juliet and her speech patterns.
As Romeo continues to speak, Juliet’s syntax, or sentence structure, begins to change. When he first started his monologue of love, Juliet would interrupt with short one sentence lines, focusing more on the logical side of things. Yet Romeo continues to speak in a very fluid tone that can go on for paragraphs, barely leaving any time for Juliet to interrupt. Once again, this shows how Juliet is too frightened by the secrecy and possibilities of getting caught to form long flowing sentences, and Romeo continues on. Eventually Juliet ends up loosening up her tone, becoming preoccupied with Romeo’s passionate responses, that her short one liners flow into similar responses. As higher class citizens, both Juliet and Romeo use iambic pentameter which helps their blank verses to flow and create a very poetic atmosphere.
Once you delve deeper into Juliet and Romeo’s speeches, you see that Romeo uses a lot of metaphors, comparing her to the sun, and describes his love as a bird that can fly him over the garden walls. Yet we see that Juliet uses no metaphors, but keeps everything very logical and predetermined, almost rehearsed lines that any “well-mannered” lady would have asked. She intends to give him this mood or atmosphere of unwanted or unorthodox love, which she both fears and wants to enjoy. This internal conflict in Juliet also adds to the mood of the entire scene, as she discovers her own desire to increment her passion between her and Romeo, yet fear for her maidenhood and the safety of Romeo.
From this, many things accumulate the “air” or mood of secrecy and passion, Romeo tends to increase the passion and Juliet a feeling of fear or desperate need for secrecy. If any of her family were to catch her, she would be gravely punished and Romeo most likely killed. Juliet’s internal conflict really influences her reaction to Romeo. The mood is formed from two different sides, Romeo acting to make things more romantic and Juliet to increase the feeling of fear and secrecy.
0 comments:
Post a Comment