Dramatic Foil In Romeo And Juliet

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The play Romeo and Juliet serves as a cautionary tale, telling a story of heavy dependence upon beliefs that leads to complications. Romeo, the protagonist, and his best friend, Mercutio, serve as dramatic foil to each other throughout the play. Dramatic foil is defined as characters whose purpose is to show off another, often in a contradictory form. Romeo and Mercutio excessively rely on their mindset leading to both of their individual deaths. Romeo as an idealist, is guided by his optimistic standards, as well as the idea of falling in love. Mercutio on the other hand, shows to be more of a realist choosing to having a practical outlook upon life . Mercutio’s realism and Romeo’s idealism conflict with one another throughout the play and …show more content…
They continue to prove it when placed in the same discussion. Before entering the Capulet party, Romeo told Benvolio, Mercutio and his other friends that he had an off feeling. When pressed, Romeo confesses that he had a dream to which Mercutio scoffs. Continuing, Mercutio creates a character, Queen Mab, describing her as the fairies’ midwife no larger than a small stone. According to him she gallops through minds and “through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love;/ On courtiers' knees, that dream on curtsies straight;/ O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees;/ O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream,” (I. IV. 76-79). Essentially the queen makes the dreamer see whatever they desire. Mercutio throughout his speech was suggesting that dreamers such as Romeo were nonsensical and worth nothing. His view starks greatly with that of Romeo, and on a larger scale the love Romeo and Juliet claim to present. The two young lovers see their love as real and noble, while Mercutio, if he ever found out about it would most likely scoff. Moreover Romeo takes his dreams rather seriously as an idealist. Dreams to him, would be the universe's way of telling him something. Thus by ignoring his images he is making a grave mistake and creating future issues. Mercutio as a realist prepares for situations as they come, not believing in fate. Both individual characters fail realize that devoting to one single ideology would result in further
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