Romeo and Juliet is a classic tragedy that we have watched, read, and recreated this semester. It entails romance, sword fights, and, ultimately, the deaths of the main characters. We were tasked with animating a single act from the play as a group and reflecting on the final project individually.
The act that our group animated takes place after Juliet has found out she’s going to be marrying Paris, by her father’s command. She is with the Friar, expressing her discomfort about marrying Paris. Friar helped Romeo and Juliet get married, so he understands why she is upset. Understanding her pain, he explains to her how she can get out of the marriage with Paris. He offers her a vial, containing a mixture that, when drunk, will make Juliet fall into deep, lifeless sleep, making her appear dead. Juliet is overjoyed and takes the vial home. She recites a soliloquy, wondering if perhaps the Friar is trying to kill her to keep his namesake, or if the mixture will even work at all. She feels grief over Tybalt's death and fears that she may be trapped in the tomb, lying beside her deceased cousin, but ultimately, despite her doubts, drinks from the vial in the name of Romeo. In the morning, Nurse finds Juliet asleep, appearing to be dead, and cries out in agony. The first scene of our act takes place in the Friar's cell where he and Juliet are having a conversation. The third and fifth act take place in Juliet's bedroom, where she drinks from the vial and is found sleeping the next morning. The conflict of our act is Juliet trying to decide whether to drink from the vial and get out of marrying Paris or to count her con list as caution and go against drinking the mixture. Although she temporarily overcomes this conflict by choosing to drink the mixture, she later feels conflicted about whether or not it was the right decision to do so. The theme of our act is the lengths to which someone will go to for true love. We have seen Juliet marry secretly and have forbidden kisses, but this is a point in the story where Juliet goes from saying, “Oh bid me leap!” to literally mocking her own death so that she can be with Romeo, which eventually leads to her fully taking her life. This is a sacrifice that very little people, especially in that time period, would make for love. This act shows us that Juliet is truly in love and is legitimately willing to make any sacrifice to be with Romeo. Juliet’s actions in taking the vial despite her conflicted feelings about it also support the overarching theme of the entire play, which is, in my opinion, overcoming conflicts in the name of love. Some of the visual elements we used in the animation of our act were costumes to resemble the characters, curtains to create the illusion of a bed and, most importantly, a perfume bottle to represent the vial. The vial and the mixture it holds are the backbones that make Romeo and Juliet a tragedy. Without Juliet faking her death, the ending of the play could not have taken place. Therefore, we felt that it was important to include the vial with a visible representation, acting as a symbol for the theme of the act and the theme of the play itself. Through watching, summarizing, and animating this play, I have learned a lot about literature. I have learned about reading and writing using iambic pentameter, as well as how to read and understand inverse syntax. This information, along with applying it to a visual project, has helped me better understand formal writing and write better formally myself. This shows me that Romeo and Juliet, a literary classic which was written centuries ago, is still incredibly applicable to our everyday lives.
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AuthorLeah is an eighteen-year-old aspiring Canadian artist who enjoys drawing, painting, and photography. |