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In What Ways Does Shakespeare Create Sympathy for Romeo and Juliet and Their Relationship?

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During the play Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare manages to effectively depict the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet’s relationship. One way he achieves this is by creating sympathy for Romeo and Juliet, which consequently affects the reader and audience of the play. Three ways in which Shakespeare is able to create sympathy for them is through the general setting and plot structure, the language used, and also the characterisation of Romeo and Juliet. From the very beginning of the play (in the prologue), Shakespeare begins to create a sense of sympathy for Romeo and Juliet. Here, the audience is told that these two lovers are ‘star cross’d’ - meaning that their love goes against the stars and is therefore doomed to end in disaster. As a …show more content…

It is from this rhyming, oxymoronic phrase that the audience can gage how this soft spoken man was not a figure of hate in reality, but a loving man. Juliet’s character is also contrasted to the frosty nature of Tybalt and the rest of the Capulets - she epitomises the innocence of their relationship. From the start of Act 1 Scene 3, we learn from Lady Capulet that Juliet is still thirteen years old - ‘she’s not fourteen’. From this, this audience can assume that she is still at that age of naivety and immaturity, again showing that she does not belong in such a violent feud. Due to her age, Juliet evidently is a vulnerable character and one that likely does not have the mental ability to make intelligent choices, such as the decisions against her father’s will to not marry Paris, but to secretly marry Romeo instead – a decision that was to become a key factor in both Romeo and Juliet’s death. In addition, Shakespeare creates sympathy for Juliet through her innocence and good will. Her innocence and good will which is left worthless as she is left in a situation she cannot to anything about – a situation revealed in the prologue as being one that is fated to end tragically. Throughout the play, Shakespeare uses many different methods to enable the reader to feel sympathetic towards Romeo and Juliet. The various plot twists provide a dramatic

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