4ab 12-04

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 4

Today

Romeo & Juliet

Check testweek essay

Important!! Wednesday be at school at 18:40

Choose a picture that reminds you of "Romeo and Juliet"

The characters

- Romeo Montague: about 16, lives in the middle of a feud between his family and the Capulets. Love is the only thing on his mind and he falls in love with Juliet Capulet after being completely in love with Rosalind. 

- Juliet Capulet: form an aristocratic family, so little freedom. Trusts Romeo with her future and life. Has a close relationship with her nurse but puts Romeo before her.

Juliet

Romeo

courage

Grows up quickly

immature

impulsive

passion

- Friar Lawrence: friend of Romeo and Juliet, secretly marries the couple, expert in herbs and potions and uses this to help Juliet.

--> Why did he mary the couple?

- Mercutio:  Romeo's closest friend. Full of wit, humour and sarcasm.

The nurse: Juliet's closest confidante.  A sentimental character that provides comic relief. Has an oposing view to love compared to Juliet.

--> how does their relationship change?

- Tybalt: Juliet's cousin. Vain fashionable characters that turns aggressive and violant quickly.  Excellent swordfighter.

Another important character is the chorus. What is the chorus and its function?

Themes

Love

"Love in Romeo and Juliet is a brutal, powerful emotion that captures individuals and catapults them against their world, and, at times, against themselves"

--> Do you agree? Can you explain this? 

Love and death

"The passionate love between Romeo and Juliet is linked from the moment of its inception with death"

- crashing the party = death, right as he fell in love
- plagued by thoughts of suicide
-  threats of suicide

- conclusion: double suicide

Explain "fate" as a theme in Romeo & Juliet

The Inevitability Of Fate

- "star-crossed lovers" - chorus

- constant omens thorugout the play

- the mechanism of fate: the series of sccidents in the plan, the tragic timing of Juliets awakening and Romeo's death

Symbols: poison & Queen Mab

"Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts."

--> is poison evil? Does the poison cause death?
--> how are people related to this?

Poison

"Poison symbolizes human society’s tendency to poison good things and make them fatal, just as the pointless Capulet-Montague feud turns Romeo and Juliet’s love to poison. After all, unlike many of the other tragedies, this play does not have an evil villain, but rather people whose good qualities are turned to poison by the world in which they live."

the fairy Queen Mab

- fairy Queen Mab, who rides through the night on her tiny wagon bringing dreams to sleepers. 
- serves to confirm them in whatever vices they are addicted to—for example, greed, violence, or lust.

--> what does Queen Mab stand for?
--> how does this viewpoint relate to that of Romeo and Juliet?

The test