In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, it is
the conflicts between the intense love of Juliet and Romeo and the hatred that divides their
families that predominates throughout the play. Juliet's reflections in Act III, Scene 2, lines
73-85 delineate this love/hate motif. For, when Juliet learns of Tybalt's death she does the
following:
- She speaks in contrasting
images: "serpent heart/flowering face, dragon/fair cave, beautiful tyrant,
fiend/angelic, wolfish-rabid lamb, damned saint, honorable
villain." - Juliet's speech employs light/dark
imagery, which also prevails throughout the play: "fiend angelical, dove-feather'd
raven - Her speech uses the metaphor of
a book, which has also been used when her mother speaks to her of Paris--"the precious book of
love" as a suitor in Act I, Scene 3 contrasting it with another metaphor of a
palace:
Was
ever book containing such vile matterSo fairly bound? O that
deceit should dwellIn such a gorgeous palace!
(3.2.83-85)
The dichotomy of Juliet's
speech refects the dichotomy of the love/hate theme of Romeo and
Juliet.
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