Mercutio Flashcards
‘You are a lover; borrow Cupid’s wings/ and soar with them above a common bound.’ A1S4
- opposes views of Petrarchan love by mocking Romeo
- Is not supporting and sees love as ridiculous. He trivialises love sickness.
- ‘Cupid’s wings’ — refers to cliché ideas of love to mock love. Also, the verb
‘borrow’ is indicative of his beliefs that love is fleeting and not permanent. - He represents mainly men in society who perceive Romeo’s love sickness as melodramatic.
‘If love be rough with you, be rough with love. Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down’ - A1S4
The plosive lexis (the words “be”, “prick”, “pricking” and “beat” agglomerate to create a succession of harsh sounds) reinforces the impression of Mercutio’s harsh, and raw perception of love because this almost suggests that he views love making as a violent action.
The violent verbs “prick” and “pricking” create phallic imagery, which shows Shakespeare’s audience how he views love as purely sexual, whilst this also depicts the dominance that men were supposed to have over women within an Elizabethan relationship.
The symmetry of the sentence structure here, as both sentences are split in half by the implementation of a comma, acting as an isocolon, contrasts Mercutio’s opinion of love. This is because the symmetry makes it seem as if love is very complete and perfect, which is not what Mercutio believes. The chiasmus creates a sense of confusion that is associated to love
Yet, his harsh opinions completely contrast Romeo and Juliet’s pure and tender expression of love.
‘This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs, that presses them and learns them first to bear, making them women of good carriage.’ A14
‘hag’ — derogatory term used to mock and indicate Mercutio’s opinions on women.
- ‘Women of good carriage’ — ‘carriage’ refers to child-bearing which can imply Mercutio’s beliefs that women are inferior and their only purpose is child-bearing skills. Sees them as vessels for men’s desires.
- ‘Lie on their backs, that presses them’ —> sexual innuendo indicates how his association with ‘women’ immediately links to sexual intent.
“I conjure thee by Rosaline’s bright eyes, By her high forehead and her scarlet lip, By her fine foot, straight leg, and quivering thigh” Act 2 Scene 1
‘conjure thee’ —> refers to ‘invoke’ or ‘bewitch’ —> shows how Mercutio believes that Romeo has been entranced into lovesickness but not by love but by lust.
Lack of understanding of Romeo’s melancholy as he associates his condition with lust.
- ‘Bright eyes, by her high forehead, and her scarlet lip, by her fine foot, straight leg and quivering thigh’ —> poetic blazon technique with ‘bright eyes’ using Petrarchan love imagery, to reinforce impression of Mercutio’s sexual and primitive view of love.
- He then mocks Romeo suggesting that Romeo is lustful when referring to her
‘quivering thigh’ which uses an over-sexualised lexicon.
“O Romeo, that she were, O, that she were An open-arse, thou a poperin pear!”
Act 2 Scene 1
Again, the plosive lexis created through the mentioning of “poperin pear!” reinforces the impression that Mercutio views love in a harsh and rough way.
To build upon this, the mention of “poperin pear!” creates more sexual imagery (not surprising from Mercutio) as this was a fruit that was often at the time compared to a woman’s genitalia. Thus, Mercutio believes that love is based on sexual desire and not true affection.
In response to Romeo’s act of falling in love with Juliet, however he uses a more sinister tone conflating love with sex.
‘Poor Romeo, he is already dead, stabbed with a white wench’s black eye, run through the ear with a love-song’ A2S4
‘poor’ —> views Romeo as a victim showing a bias against women.
- ‘Through the ear with a love-song’ —> uses auditory imagery to portray how love is causing Romeo to suffer within all his senses. Indicates his negative views on love portraying him as a character who believes in the idea of lust.
- ‘White wench’s black eye’ — derogatory getory language.
- ‘Already dead’ —> portrays love as a disease that causes death.
‘Here’s my fiddlestick; here’s that shall make you dance’
- verb ‘dance’ is used to mock Tybalt portraying Romeo as intelligent when provoking a fight as he aims to anger and humiliate Tybalt. Desire for violence.
- ‘Fiddlestick’ and ‘dance’ create a lexical field of music linking to his previous quote when Tybalt is a ‘duellist; a duellist’ where a ‘duellist’ can connote to a person who does not fight usually but organises it.
- In this, Mercutio ridicules Tybalt’s status as a fighter portraying him as a fake fighter and more of a showman/ musician.
- Mercutio’s management of language underscores him as quick-witted.
‘A plague o’ both your houses. They have made worms’ meat of me’ - A3S1
‘plague’ — in his final moments, he is a vehicle for Shakespeare to convey his beliefs on their futility of the feud. Mercutio now sees violence and hatred a
‘plague’ and contagious so no longer aligns himself with any specific house (‘houses’).
- In his final line ‘worms meat of me’ —> feels humiliated as he realises his impending death as ‘worms’ creates imagery of decay. His final thoughts before death are on how his reputation had been tarnished on the battle field. Male bravado reputation has been stained. Describes his death in euphemistic terms, perhaps showing his reluctance to accept reality.
‘O calm dishonourable, vile submission!’ - A3S1
- ‘submission’ —> verb indicates Romeo in his obedient nature that does not comply to the conventions of masculinity within the renaissance period.
- ‘Calm’ — and ‘dishonourable, vile’ creates a sense of juxtaposition portraying Romeo’s calm nature as ‘dishonourable. This portrays Mercutio as an embodiment of toxic masculinity in the way that he sees an act of non-violence as disgraceful.
- This is emphasised by assonance in ‘O’ and exclamatory punctuation ‘!’
Portraying Mercutio’s sense of horror that Romeo is not willing to fight. This indicates his strong desire for violence and pain which contributes to the failings of Verona’s society.
