Love, Fate, and Tragedy: A Comparative Analysis of Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica Love, Fate, and Tragedy: A Comparative Analysis of Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! ROMEO AND JULIET In the first act Romeo reveals to his cousin that he is in love with Rosaline, so he decided to attend to a ball at the Couplet’s house. There he met Juliet and its love at first sight; they discover that their families are enemy. In the second act Romeo overhears Juliet expressing her love for him; they both declare their desire to get married; the two lovers get married by Friar Laurence, hoping to end their family quarrel. The third act can be divided in 2 parts: the first one is full of movement, Mercutio, Romeo's friend, is killed by Tybalt, Juliet's cousin; so Romeo kills Tybalt and is banished from Verona to Mantua. To avoid the marriage with count Paris, Juliet took a potion given her by Friar Laurence, to fake her death. The friar sent a massage to Mantua to inform Romeo, but he was already going to Verona. There he sees Juliet's body, so he take same poison and died; when Juliet woke up saw Romeo's lifeless body and she decided to stab herself. For the setting, Shakespeare choose Verona because Italians were considered violent and passionate. The social context is the struggle between Couplet and Montagues to gain control of the city. Romeo is a man who belongs to courtly love convention because of his adoration for the woman he loves. He often uses the image of light as a symbol of love ì. He compares Juliet to the light of the torches because she is the light that frees him from his melancholy. His love makes him courageous: he risks his life to be near Juliet and he commits suicide rather than live without her. At the begging, Juliet appears as an obedient child, but, when she meets Romeo, she stars her maturity period, so she shows determination and strength. Like Romeo, she compares their love to light, especially to point out the speed at which their romance is moving. When she sees Romeo dead beside her she does not kill herself because of her weakness, bit because of her strong love. The themes of the play are: -the power of love: their love is so powerful that they turn against their families and their loyalties. -passion and violence: the passion leads to the violence, from Tybalt's death to the two lovers’ suicide. -Individuals against society: the Couplets and the Montagues won't stop feuding just because two kids are in love, only the final tragedy leads them to change. -The power of fate: At the begging of the paly the chorus say that Romeo and Juliet's love is ‘star-crossed’, that means that it will end tragically. In the play, the rhythm is regular, rhymes are common, often used in couplets, he even inserts a sonnet into the dialogue. Imaginary is all about oxymora: life and death, dark and light, love and hate. The balcony scene In the balcony scene we heard Juliet's monologue in which she speaks about Romeo's name, she says that his name does not represent him as a person, so, even if he had another name, he will still owe his perfection. She asks him to deny his name and for that, he will have all of her. Romeo replies that he also hate his name, because it's enemy to the woman that he loves. Juliet that talks about her feelings, she says that she is embarrassed about the things Romeo heard that night and for good manners, she would have to deny everything, but she will not. She is afraid that Romeo would think that her love was too easy to conquer, but she swears that even though she has not played hard-to-get she will be very faithful and loyal. HAMLET Hamlet's father, the king of Denmark, had died and the queen had already married his brother, Claudius, making him king. One day the father’s ghost appears in the castle and tell Hamlet that he hadn't died for natural causes, but he was killed by Claudius, and asks him to avenge him. Initially Hamlet doesn't believe him, so to make sure the story was true he makes a plan, and acts mad to carry it out more easily, Polonius thinks that he is mad because of the his love for his daughter Ophelia. Hamlet arranges a group of actors to perform a play very similar to the story narrated by the ghost. Claudius realizes that and he escape. Hamlet goes to his mother to talk to her, but during the discussion, he accidentally kills Polonius. Ophelia desperate kills herself. Laertes wants revenge for his father and sister’s death so he plot with the king to kill Hamlet during a duel. To make sure Hamlet dies the king puts poison in his wine cup, but Gertrude accidentally drinks it; and it also put poison on top of Laertes’ sword, which hits both Hamlet and Laertes, before dying Hamlet manages to kill Claudius. The play is set between 14%" and 15* century in Denmark, which was a protestant country just like England; Hamlet studies in Germany where Martin Luther started his Protestant reformation. Hamlet is the most talkative of the Shakespeare”s characters; everything he says has a hidden meaning. The shock that he receives for the death of his father and the re-marriage of his mother is the cause of his melancholy; the world changes his colour, the love loses his spiritual dies and the State his stability. Hamlet can be considered a revenge tragedy because it contains of the typical elements of this kind of tragedy. The main theme of Hamlet is death; in fact, it was king's death that triggers all of the events. Other themes are revenge, religion, madness and honor. Hamlet accuses her mother of acting shamelessly because she married his uncle after the death of the father, but the truth is that everyone in the play acts this way; for this reason the purpose of the play is the production of shame in the audience. Hamlet meets the ghost The scene takes place in the >Elsinore castle where the ghost of Hamlet's father has just appeared to him; he reveals the truth about his death: he was murdered by his brother Claudius, who poured poison in to his ears while he was sleeping. He demands revenge because he is doomed to suffer in purgatory to purge his sins, Hamlet promises him to avenge him, but the ghost warns him not to do anything to his mother Gertrude, because she have to live with the guilt that hunts her. The whole scene can be divided in 3 sections; in the first one (1-13) there is the first meeting between Hamlet and the ghost; in the second section (14-28) there is the description of the ghost's punishments in the other world; in the third section (29-97) there is the theme of revenge and description of the murder. To be or not to be The soliloquy is essentially all about life and death, Hamlet discusses how painful and miserable human’s life is, and how death, in particular, suicide, would be preferable. That is what he would do if he was not scared and uncertain of what comes after death. The base of the soliloquy are the problems of modern men, Hamlet enhances the ability to cross the border between life and death an d the the ability to stay alive and bear the pain of human condition. MACBETH The play opens up with the news that an attempted invasion of Scotland by Norwegians has failed thanks to Macbeth’s courage. While he was returning home with Banquo, he meets three withes, they say to him that he will be the next king of Scotland and they promise Banquo that he will be father to a line of kings. To make the prophecy come true, Macbeth invites Duncan, king of Scotland, to his castle to kill him. The e kings sons, Malcom and Donalbain, decide to escape because they fear for their life. Banquo and Macduff are suspicious about Macbeth becoming the new king. In the Third act, Macbeth, not feeling safe, kills Banquo and his son; but Banquo's ghost hunts him. The three witches warn Macbeth to beware of Macduff: thus lead to the murder of Macduff’s children and wife. The last act opens up with Lady