Juxtapositions are two facts that when they are placed or seen next to each other, they cause a counter effect. Examples of juxtapositions are puns, oxymora, and paradoxes. Because it is written into literature, juxtapositions characterizes people by indirectly telling them. Without it, authors would tell the readers, without deviation, how the characters act and speak. William Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet, is about how love does not conquer all. While the theme seems simple enough, the characters are complex. Shakespeare uses juxtapositions to indirectly characterize complex characters.
Three characters from Romeo and Juliet are characterized the most conspicuously. Juliet, the first character, is obliquely characterized as impetuous. When Romeo and Juliet decided to get married right away, Friar Laurence thought that they were moving too quickly: “These violent delights have violent ends” (2.6.9). He explained that their hasty decision to marry would in a worse plight with a paradox. When Juliet said “...O happy dagger,” she was making an abrupt decision to kill herself after Romeo had (5.3.169). Juliet thought the only way to cope with Romeo’s death was to join him, …show more content…
Friar Laurence is complexly characterized as a source of help and harm. When he says, “...The sweetest honey/Is loathsome in his own deliciousness,” he is explaining how he thinks while one can seem delightful at first it becomes overwhelming (2.6.11-12). His explanation mimics the play because at first the play was nice and sweet and it becomes corrupted with the death of the star-crossed lovers. Friar Laurence says that in the wrong situation good help can turn bad: “Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied” (2.3.21). Shakespeare used this paradox to foreshadow how Friar Laurence’s help would conclude; however, being misused, his help turned into harm. Friar Laurence is complexly characterized as the virtue which turns to
Three characters from Romeo and Juliet are characterized the most conspicuously. Juliet, the first character, is obliquely characterized as impetuous. When Romeo and Juliet decided to get married right away, Friar Laurence thought that they were moving too quickly: “These violent delights have violent ends” (2.6.9). He explained that their hasty decision to marry would in a worse plight with a paradox. When Juliet said “...O happy dagger,” she was making an abrupt decision to kill herself after Romeo had (5.3.169). Juliet thought the only way to cope with Romeo’s death was to join him, …show more content…
Friar Laurence is complexly characterized as a source of help and harm. When he says, “...The sweetest honey/Is loathsome in his own deliciousness,” he is explaining how he thinks while one can seem delightful at first it becomes overwhelming (2.6.11-12). His explanation mimics the play because at first the play was nice and sweet and it becomes corrupted with the death of the star-crossed lovers. Friar Laurence says that in the wrong situation good help can turn bad: “Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied” (2.3.21). Shakespeare used this paradox to foreshadow how Friar Laurence’s help would conclude; however, being misused, his help turned into harm. Friar Laurence is complexly characterized as the virtue which turns to