 |
| The feuding families brought together by their children's deaths. |
In order to collect enough evidence for your investigative report, you need to wear the shoes of one of the characters within the Montague-Capulet family feud. Clips from relevant film adaptations, such as Baz Luhrman’s Romeo and Juliet, Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, Kelly Asbury’s Gnomeo and Juliet, etc. etc can be used to enhance your case, as well as excerpts from the early “investigator” Shakespeare, who directly gathered vital information during the feud’s upheaval.
The main focus of your report and gathering sufficient evidence will relate specifically to the following questions (as mentioned in the Task).
1. Choose one family member and argue their role in the family feud.
2. How did the family feud ultimately impact on this character?
3. What was their role in Romeo and Juliet’s death?
4. Compare and contrast these conclusions you have come to with the interpretations given.
Each character has a clip and an extract from the play that you can use, and a brief synopsis of their role in the feud.
ROMEO AND JULIET:
ROMEO AND JULIET:
Romeo:
The son and heir of Montague and Lady Montague. A young man of about sixteen, Romeo is handsome, intelligent, and sensitive. Though impulsive and immature, his idealism and passion make him an extremely likable character. He lives in the middle of a violent feud between his family and the Capulets, but he is not at all interested in violence. His only interest is love. At the beginning of the play he is madly in love with a woman named Rosaline, but the instant he lays eyes on Juliet, he falls in love with her and forgets Rosaline. Thus, Shakespeare gives us every reason to question how real Romeo’s new love is, but Romeo goes to extremes to prove the seriousness of his feelings. He secretly marries Juliet, the daughter of his father’s worst enemy; he happily takes abuse from Tybalt; and he would rather die than live without his beloved. Romeo is also an affectionate and devoted friend to his relative Benvolio, Mercutio, and Friar Lawrence.
Juliet:
The daughter of Capulet and Lady Capulet. A beautiful thirteen-year-old girl, Juliet begins the play as a naïve child who has thought little about love and marriage, but she grows up quickly upon falling in love with Romeo, the son of her family’s great enemy. Because she is a girl in an aristocratic family, she has none of the freedom Romeo has to roam around the city, climb over walls in the middle of the night, or get into swordfights. Nevertheless, she shows amazing courage in trusting her entire life and future to Romeo, even refusing to believe the worst reports about him after he gets involved in a fight with her cousin. Juliet’s closest friend and confidant is her nurse, though she’s willing to shut the Nurse out of her life the moment the Nurse turns against Romeo.
Play extract
Scene Five: (After Tybalt’s death, Juliet confesses that she doesn’t want to marry Paris
Clip:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MONTAGUES:
Benvolio
Benvolio
Montague’s nephew, Romeo’s cousin and thoughtful friend, he makes a genuine effort to defuse violent scenes in public places, though Mercutio accuses him of having a nasty temper in private. He spends most of the play trying to help Romeo get his mind off Rosaline, even after Romeo has fallen in love with Juliet.
Play extract
Scene One: (Benvolio, Romeo’s cousin, talking to the Montague’s about the family feud)
Clip:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mercutio
A kinsman to the Prince, and Romeo’s close friend. One of the most extraordinary characters in all of Shakespeare’s plays, Mercutio overflows with imagination, wit, and, at times, a strange, biting satire and brooding fervor. Mercutio loves wordplay, especially sexual double entendres. He can be quite hotheaded, and hates people who are affected, pretentious, or obsessed with the latest fashions. He finds Romeo’s romanticized ideas about love tiresome, and tries to convince Romeo to view love as a simple matter of sexual appetite.
Mercutio
A kinsman to the Prince, and Romeo’s close friend. One of the most extraordinary characters in all of Shakespeare’s plays, Mercutio overflows with imagination, wit, and, at times, a strange, biting satire and brooding fervor. Mercutio loves wordplay, especially sexual double entendres. He can be quite hotheaded, and hates people who are affected, pretentious, or obsessed with the latest fashions. He finds Romeo’s romanticized ideas about love tiresome, and tries to convince Romeo to view love as a simple matter of sexual appetite.
Play extract
Act 2 Scene One: (Mercutio talking with Benvolio about Romeo’s love life)
Clip:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Montague and Lady Montague
M: Romeo’s father, the patriarch of the Montague clan and bitter enemy of Capulet. At the beginning of the play, he is chiefly concerned about Romeo’s melancholy.
LM: Romeo’s mother, Montague’s wife. She dies of grief after Romeo is exiled from Verona.
Play extract
Scene One: (Montague looking for Romeo and pondering why he has been acting oddly of late)
Clip:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tybalt
A Capulet, Juliet’s cousin on her mother’s side. Vain, fashionable, supremely aware of courtesy and the lack of it, he becomes aggressive, violent, and quick to draw his sword when he feels his pride has been injured. Once drawn, his sword is something to be feared. He loathes Montagues.
Play extract
Scene Five: (Tybalt fuming over Romeo’s presence at the house)
Clip:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Capulet and Lady Capulet
C: The patriarch of the Capulet family, father of Juliet, husband of Lady Capulet, and enemy, for unexplained reasons, of Montague. He truly loves his daughter, though he is not well acquainted with Juliet’s thoughts or feelings, and seems to think that what is best for her is a “good” match with Paris. Often prudent, he commands respect and propriety, but he is liable to fly into a rage when either is lacking.
LC: Juliet’s mother, Capulet’s wife. A woman who herself married young (by her own estimation she gave birth to Juliet at close to the age of fourteen), she is eager to see her daughter marry Paris. She is an ineffectual mother, relying on the Nurse for moral and pragmatic support. Play extract
Scene Two: CAPULET (talking to Paris
OR
Scene Three: LADY CAPULET (talking to Juliet with Nurse about Paris
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
