In the play, Romeo and Juliet, the character of Mercutio is one of Romeo’s best friends, whose aggressive vitality (shown in speech as well as action) provokes a duel – with a tragic outcome that affects every character in the play.
You first meet Mercutio in Act one, scene four, where Benvolio, Romeo and Mercutio are about to gatecrash a party at the Capulet household.
Within the first few lines of the scene, we get the impression that although Mercutio seems to be a very good friend to Romeo, they are polar opposites. For example, whereas Romeo is a lover and uses poetic language to express it, Mercutio uses poetic language to mock the idea of love.
An example of this is when Mercutio says, ‘If love be rough with you, be rough with love: Prick love for pricking and you beat love down.’ This could also be used as an example of how while Romeo tries to be a peacemaker, Mercutio is almost waiting for an excuse to start a fight, to put it simply, Mercutio is more headstrong with an aggressive vitality.
Another one of Mercutio’s characteristics is his imaginative, almost crazy, mind. One of the best examples of this is his speech about ‘Queen Mab’ the ‘fairies midwife’.
This speech comes about after Romeo has told Mercutio and Benvolio that he has had a dream, telling him that going to the party that night is a bad idea and will have dire consequences (which, in hindsight the two friends should have taken more notice to) and so Mercutio waves it away and, to lighten the mood, makes Romeo turn his attention to Mercutio’s speech about how dreams really come about.
The Essay on "Haste Is Waste" In Romeo And Juliet
In the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, many characters react too quickly to things without really thinking before acting. Doing this, also known as “haste is waste”, causes many problems throughout the play which could have been avoided if the characters weren’t so hasty. “Haste is waste”, the theme in Romeo and Juliet, is displayed a great deal ...
His imaginative mind is shown, in this speech, by the way he describes ‘Queen Mab’. Using phrases like, ‘In shape no bigger than an agate-stone’. He describes her chariot in finite detail, and emphasizing just how small it is where he says, ‘Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners’ legs, the cover of the wings of grasshoppers, her traces of the smallest spider web, her collars of the moonshine’s wat’ry beams, her whip of cricket’s bone, the lash of film, her waggoner a small grey-coated gnat, not half so big as a round little worm.’ All of these things are very small so as he describes you start to get a feel of just how small this fairy and her chariot are.
Another example of Mercutio’s characteristics is his wide use of crude language. This first shows up in Act two, scene one where Romeo has hidden from Benvolio and Mercutio, who are trying to find him, yet joking about his love for Rosaline (yet another example of Mercutio mocking the idea of love).
The two best examples of this are toward the end of the scene where Mercutio says, ‘To raise a spirit,’ and, ‘O that she were an open arse, thou a pop’rin pear.’
Mercutio and Tybalt are like familiar strangers, in that whilst they have quite a few similar qualities, they still have quite a few dissimilar qualities. For example, on the surface, they are complete opposites if you look at which house they ‘play for’ so to speak. However, unlike Tybalt, Mercutio doesn’t actually belong to either house and so is choosing to ‘play for’ the Montagues.
They both have an aggressive vitality that makes them almost go searching for a fight but while Tybalt is hot-tempered and belligerent, Mercutio is the obvious comic relief and very carefree.
Another similarity between the two of them is their inability to understand the true love that Romeo and Juliet share and while Tybalt rejects the whole idea because he sees Romeo as a threat to the family name, Mercutio rejects the idea because he rejects the idea of love and no matter who Romeo is in love with, Mercutio will mock him, telling him that it’s all just a game. In the end, neither of them can really comprehend the subject of love because their priorities are of other things, such as when the next big dispute between the families will be.
The Essay on Insecurities Of Mercutio Romeo Tybalt Love
In Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio, who projects himself as a flamboyant and carefree person is really just masking his insecurities. He feels that if he is always acting like a jester or valiant than nobody will be able to see inside of him and exploit his weaknesses. Mercutio also feels that if he is the source of everyone's merriment he will be thought of as a clown and therefor less will be ...
While Mercutio can be compared to Tybalt and there will be some similarities and some differences, he can also be compared to Romeo because they too, have both differences and similarities.
For example, whereas Romeo is the only son of Lord and Lady Capulet, a romantically-inclined young man desperately in love with a lady called Rosaline – until he meets Juliet, the daughter of his family’s enemy – Mercutio is a fighter yet has a lively attitude which is in strong contrast with Romeo’s, deep, thoughtful and quiet attitude.
A third character that Mercutio could be compared to is the Nurse. Whilst they are, perhaps, more contrasting than Romeo and Mercutio, they still have their similarities.
For example, they are alike in their general use of crude language. Like the Nurse, Mercutio is happy to walk around using crude language, wherever, whenever, no matter how inappropriate the timing is. The Nurse is more of a ‘commoner’ than Mercutio and so has more of an excuse to be using that kind of language, uses it just as much.
