The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet is one of the greatest love stories ever told. This is evident in today’s society, with the story being retold again and again in theatre productions, books, and movie spinoffs. The story is of two lovers, whose love was doomed from the start due to their disputing families, the Capulets and Montagues, who would never see a marriage between the two. Romeo and Juliet eventually take their own lives, ceasing their families’ fighting. William Shakespeare, the playwright who wrote Romeo and Juliet and likely the most famous playwright ever, uses light and dark imagery within the story to highlight the lovers’ affection for one another against the backdrop of their lives. The motif of light and dark is used, with …show more content…
In their dark isolated lives, Romeo and Juliet’s love and light is the only comfort they have.
With the idea of light representing love already established, Shakespeare uses it reinforce the impossible odds the lovers are facing. Romeo and Juliet constantly talk of and call on astronomical and light emitting objects to change the dark world they live in. Romeo says when he encounters Juliet on her balcony, “Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,” (2.2.5). The courses of all of these celestial objects is set in stone and is celestially difficult to change, and yet Romeo and Juliet nonetheless constantly call on these forces to do the impossible. They do the same with their love, too. The lovers believe that their love and light can indeed destroy the corruption and dark of their society even though they know it is astronomically arduous to accomplish. Romeo and Juliet’s love, they hope, will shine out the dark, letting them live together in a world that accepts them.
Romeo and Juliet’s hope is realized, with the two families coming together, though the price was high. After Romeo hears news of Juliet’s death, Romeo goes to her tomb late at night and kills himself with a poison obtained from the apothecary. Romeo says before entering the tomb, “Give me the light” referring to the torch his companion was holding
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet discusses the many challenges the ‘star crossed lovers’ face. It is their own deceptive actions that ultimately lead them to their untimely end. However Romeo and Juliet are forced to be deceptive due to their fate and misfortune, the ongoing feud in Verona, and the misleading guidance they receive from others; which also contribute to their deaths. Romeo and Juliet focuses on the theme of love and hate, this theme is interweaved throughout the play.
In Act 2, Scene, 2 Romeo’s attitude to love shifts from an infatuated love towards Rosaline to more true and youthful love he feels for Juliet. When Romeo sets his eyes on Juliet for the first time, he uses light imagery to express his feelings ‘Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon’. For Romeo, Juliet is the sun who has brought brightness into his life like the sun that brought brightness to people’s lives. This beautifully romantic imagery highlights the purity of Romeo’s feelings and underscores to the reader the powerful force of love that Romeo is now entangled in.
In the beginning of the play, the motif of light vs. dark is displayed through imagery. “But all so soon as the all-cheering sun should in the farthest east begin to draw… away from light steals home my heavy son... and makes himself an artificial night.” (Montague, 1.2.127-128 130&133). This quote shows that the happy sun does not affect Romeo and the sad night is how he feels because of the darkness of the night. The quote also reveals that his depressed state is represented by darkness. This reveals a central idea that love will overpower all feelings, because he is sad that his love did not work out and caused him to be depressed.
In the ‘timeless classic’ Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, the author brilliantly utilizes several literary devices to convey the motif that true love cannot be stopped. He does this by using many opposing ideas such as love vs. pain, day vs. night and
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy that involves young lovers, their “untimely death,” and a feud between their two families. The Capulets and the Montagues war against each other. The feud continues to escalate and provides the background for the story of these “two star-crossed lovers.” This literary masterpiece is still relevant today since it involves parental ambition, family fighting, and young love.
Light and dark is one of the most common motifs that is used in many famous literary works, especially Shakespeare’s. In the most subtle ways, he uses light and dark to highlight important events that shape the play Romeo and Juliet. The main characters are star-crossed lovers who have to keep their marriage a secret from their families. They come from families that fight with one another and can never keep peace. The play begins with the tragic ending, telling us what happens from the start. In Romeo and Juliet, the motif of light and dark is used to further Shakespeare’s points of light as beauty, good, and truth, and dark as a lack of beauty, bad, and lies to reflect concurrent situations in the play.
In William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, light initially portrays positive feelings in the young lovers’ lives and interactions, but later brings sadness and despair, which reinforces an overarching theme in the play that all things have good and bad sides to them, including Romeo and Juliet’s love.
William Shakespeare wrote The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, the play of which was so elaborated that it could have infinite central ideas. The author’s great use of word choices and literary terms helps readers better understand the play. The play utilized many different motifs but light vs. dark stuck out to me the most. The things that people you care about the most do, can affect you a lot. Love can put you in serious situations that require serious decisions. The motif light vs. dark in The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet is developed by figurative language and imagery to prove how love can make people do crazy things.
Although their love continues to get stronger, everything around them starts to fade away and crumble underneath their feet. The idea of light and dark, or good and bad, helps us to differ between the ideas in the play as well as understand concepts or choices made before their big adventure began. In the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, he continuously shows the difference between light and dark and it plays an essential role in conveying love, creating mood and foreshadowing conflict and fate. The love between Romeo and Juliet shows the power of love, or light, over conflict, or dark, and the difference between good and bad.
Plays are a unique means of story-telling in that they are not comprised only of language, but also of strong visuals. At the end of the day, a play is written to be performed. Shakespeare understanding this, writes many very visual cues into his text to marry these two aspects of the story. In Romeo and Juliet, the most notable of these cues in the contrast of light and dark to demonstrate joy and sadness or displeasure. Throughout the play, in scenery and in descriptions, this is repeated to re-enforce these themes for the audience.
Romeo and Juliet is the tragedy of a pair of star-crossed lovers. The pairs will love one another to the end. These two were deeply in love and was quite unexpected to their parents. However, their tragedy could be foreshadowed. The audience could sense the pain and pleased feelings they had. One common language the both had used was the use of imagery. The light and dark imagery appealed to the reader’s sense, which would significantly give insights on their expression of love. The practice of light and dark imagery was effectively used to aid readers the love Romeo and Juliet had for each other.
Romeo & Juliet is a dark and lustful story. They make comparisons to light & dark. They also are obsessed with each other. First, we have the light and dark comparisons.
In conclusion it is evident that Shakespeare uses light and dark imagery to better characterize and develop his main characters, establish general moods, and to reinforce his three themes. Certainly one can see Juliet Capulet is developed best through light imagery to express her true beauty; also, in particular depression seems to be established as the overall mood through dark imagery. The three main ideas of Romeo and Juliet are timeless; four hundred years after it was written the drama still seems to influence and replicate teenagers in this day and age. The work has been conceived into many forms such as modern film and music. The three main themes, which describe how the teenagers act in the play, infatuation, selfishness, and hastiness
The calamitous love story Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare is about a redemptive, passionate love that takes place between Romeo a Montague and Juliet a Capulet who are heirs of these two foes. The story of the “star cross’d” lovers uses many contrasts and oppositions to create tension which causes anticipation in the audience.The continuous use of light and dark imagery, the polarity of fortune and choice as well as the comparisons between love and hate create an illustrious understanding of the plot.
The topic of light and lack of definition in William Shakespeare's The Terrible event of Romeo and Juliet highlights how the puzzle of illegal love has (so terrible that you can't put up with it) results. The maker uses light and reduce (putting pictures into your mind) to walkout the positive and high-energy extremes that Romeo and Juliet finger toward each other all through the play.