Characters in Romeo and Juliet
He appears only three times within the text and only to administer justice following major events in the feud between the Capulet and Montague families.
Escalus is prepared to execute Romeo for his offence—Romeo's killing of Tybalt—but lightens the sentence to lifetime banishment from Verona, when Benvolio insists that Tybalt started the quarrel by murdering Mercutio, a kinsman to the prince.
He yells at Lord Montague for engaging in the feud, which really is the root cause that led to Romeo killing Tybalt.
The Capulet family (Italian: Capuleti or Cappelletti)[1] in the play was named after an actual political faction of the 13th century.
He is sometimes commanding but also convivial, as at the ball: when Tybalt tries to duel with Romeo, Capulet tries to calm him and then threatens to throw him out of the family if he does not control his temper; he does the same to his daughter later in the play.
Later, however, when Juliet is grieving over Romeo's departure, Capulet thinks her sorrow is due to Tybalt's death, and in a misguided attempt to cheer her up, he wants to surprise her by arranging a marriage between her and Count Paris.
When Tybalt is killed in Act 3, she expresses extreme grief and a strong desire for revenge on Romeo by wishing death upon him.
In Act 3, Scene 5, she becomes very angry with Juliet for refusing to marry Paris and coldly rejects her, saying: "Talk not to me, for I'll not speak a word; do as thou wilt, for I am done with thee".
Both their families realize what they had done by trying to separate the star crossed lovers with the effect that the Capulets and Montagues are reunited and their fighting ends.
Tybalt is angered by the insult of Romeo and Benvolio's uninvited presence at the ball in the Capulets' home.
Tybalt shares the same name as the character Tibert/Tybalt the "Prince of Cats" in Reynard the Fox, a point of both mockery and compliment to him in the play.
[8] In the opening scene, the two engage in a dialogue full of puns on "coal" and "eye", each intending to outdo the other and get each other ready to fight Montagues.
The rhetorical form is called stichomythia, wherein characters participate in a short, quick exchanges of one-upmanship.
Montague clearly loves his son deeply and at the beginning of the play, worries for him as he recounts to Benvolio his attempts to find out the source of his depression.
Meanwhile, Juliet's father plans to marry her off to Paris, a local aristocrat, within the next few days, threatening to turn her out on the streets if she doesn't follow through.
Desperate, Juliet begs Romeo's confidant, Friar Laurence, to help her to escape the forced marriage.
He later supports Friar Laurence's recollection of the preceding events by explaining that Romeo entered the tomb and demanded to be alone on pain of death.
He appears in Act 1, Scene 1, where he and another servant (presumably Balthasar) are provoked into a fight with Gregory and Sampson when the latter bites his thumb at them.
Friar Laurence plays the part of an advisor and mentor to Romeo, along with aiding in major plot developments.
Nevertheless, Friar Lawrence decides to marry Romeo and Juliet in the attempt to end the civil feud between the Capulets and the Montagues.
[20] He urges Juliet not to be rash, and to join a society of nuns,[21] but he hears a noise from outside and then flees from the tomb.
The Friar is forced to return to the tomb, where he recounts the entire story to Prince Escalus, and all the Montagues and Capulets.
It appears at the top of the play to fill the audience in on the ancient quarrel between the, "Two households, both alike in dignity / In fair Verona, where we lay our scene".
It returns as a prologue to act two to foreshadow the tragic turn of events about to befall the new romance between the title characters.
Unusual for a Shakespearean watch group, they appear to be a relatively intelligent unit, managing to capture and detain Balthasar and Friar Laurence in the churchyard.
They appear again in Act III, Scene I to discover the slain body of Tybalt, at which point they place Benvolio under citizen's arrest until the Prince's swift entrance.
Although silent, her role is important: her lover, Romeo, first spots her cousin Juliet while trying to catch a glimpse of Rosaline at a Capulet gathering.
[23] Valentine is Mercutio's brother, briefly mentioned as a guest at the Capulet feast where Romeo and Juliet meet.
Shakespeare was the first English dramatist to use the name "Valentine" on stage, in his earlier plays, Titus Andronicus and The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Thus, because the first time we hear of Mercutio he is associated with Valentine, rather than Juliet, he is changed from a rival to a friend and brotherly figure of Romeo.
