Timothy Langer 6F

How does Shakespeare present Romeo in Act 1 Scene 1?

In Act 1 Scene 1 of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Romeo is

presented as a young man who is just beginning to explore love, as he

discusses his emotions with his cousin and good friend, Benvolio. Although

Romeo has many conflicting thoughts, he stubbornly claims he loves Rosaline,

all to the audience's knowledge that very soon he will meet Juliet instead.

In the first scene of the play, Shakespeare establishes the core themes, such

as the passing of time and the disparity between love and hate. Romeo's very

first line, "Is the day so young?" exposes how his love-sickness for Rosaline

causes him to wake up before sunrise and wait for the hours to drag by.

Shakespeare's use of a combination of monosyllables and open vowels

stretches out Romeo's short sentence "sad hours seem long", while the

sibilance matches his dour tone, suggesting sadness and a feeling of pain and

endlessness. Immediately after this, Shakespeare introduces, arguably, the

most important theme of the play: love. Benvolio indicates that Love as a

character can seem so "gentle", but be so brutal, powerful and unpredictable

("tyrannous"), further emphasised by the connotations of violence and pain in

the word "rough". Romeo's use of ecphonesis as he exclaims "O" several times

shows his highly emotional state. Shakespeare uses a paradoxical phrase "O

brawling love, O loving hate" similar to the line "Fair is foul, and foul is fair" in

Macbeth, to draw the audience's attention to the theme of love and hate. The

next few lines add to the audience's impression of Romeo's confusion and

uncertainty, as he talks about the two-faceted nature of love. The use of

oxymorons such as "heavy lightness" shows his conflicted mindset and

reinforces the idea that love can cause both positive and negative emotions.

"Feather of lead" portrays love as something that can be as fragile as a feather

but at the same time something heavy-hearted. Love is simultaneously

something so full of emotion like a "fire" but also something with connotations