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You are here: Experts > Homework Help > Mark Twain > Literature > Shakespeare
Expert: Tue Sorensen - 10/24/2009
Question
I have written my essay on 'how does Shakespeare sustain dramatic tension in Act 3 scene 5 of R&J?' My teacher said that it is very good but that I need to write about theatricality and philosophy - here is where I am troubled. Does theatricality mean writing about stage directions? and does philosophy mean writing about why shakespeare wrote the play for example - when lord capulet insults juliet the elizabethan audience would accept this because there philosophy was obey the men or am I totally wrong. I just need a little advice on what both mean. I really want to get an A*.
thank you
Shelley
Answer
Hello Shelley,
Thanks for the question. Theatricality means how Shakespeare is using words to describe dramatic effects on the stage. Look at the description of what goes on in the scene, and speculate as to how Shakespeare probably intended for this scene to be presented on-stage. Or indeed how a modern stage director might interpret the scene in a theatrical performance, so the audience would find the situation convincing. The scene essentially starts by R&J being in bed together, and reluctant to leave each other. How should this be presented on-stage, and how might a director or choreographer arrange the transition from R&J talking, and to Juliet's parents bringing her the news of her wedding with Paris? Does it all take place in Juliet's room, or do they move to adjacent rooms?
Philosophy is a bit harder. But I think you're on the right track. The Elizabethan audience would expect a certain dutiful conduct from a daughter in regard to the decisions of her father, so when Juliet doesn't want to marry Paris, it becomes so much of a problem that her parents are close to disowning her. Juliet, too, understands this, and being as young as she is, and in love with someone her parents disapprove of, there seems to her to be no other solution that to kill herself. That's how powerful the convention of the daughter's obedience to the father is: if she won't obey, there may be no other course of action left to her but death. The same theme is seen in several Shakespeare plays, like for instance A Midsummer Night's Dream, where, in the beginning of the play, Hermia is threatened with death, if she doesn't marry the man of her father's choice.
Another interesting comparison can be made with Othello, in which Desdemona has secretly married Othello, and then (quite early in the play; it will be easy for you to look it up online) gives a speech to her father about how all her duty is now to her husband, and no longer to her father. Actually, Juliet might have given her father a similar speech! Only, she doesn't feel powerful enough to assert her will in this situation; the Verona of R&J is probably a more old-fashioned and conventional society than the Venice of Othello, and Desdemona is probably several years older than Juliet. But I'm certain your teacher would be impressed if you draw parallels to other Shakespeare plays. Of course, in that case it would be a good idea to read the whole plays... :-) You may not have time for that now, but maybe you could at least look at them briefly. I certainly recommend that you read several other Shakespeare plays, because, for one thing, it's the greatest literature ever written, and, for another, it's always useful to compare the various scenes of the various plays. Shakespeare always comment on a situation from several different points of view, but you need to have read several plays in order to discover it, and call attention to it in your papers.
I hope I gave you a useful answer to your question. Good luck with your essay!
- Tue Sorensen
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