1. Let’s Review Benvolio Tybalt The Prince Romeo
What do we learn about the personalities of the following characters in Act I, Scene I of Romeo and Juliet?
Benvolio
Tybalt
The Prince
Romeo

2. Rosaline

3. Character Foils
A foil is a person who contrasts with another character in order to make various traits in each character more apparent. They complement each other.

4. Act I, scene iii

5. Act I, scene iii Lady Capulet Nurse
“This is the matter – Nurse, give us leave awhile, / We must talk in secret. Nurse, come back again.
“Enough of this. I pray thee hold thy peace.”
“Speak briefly, can you like of Paris’ love?”
“I have but four [teeth]”
“I remember it well…I never shall forget it.”
“Thou was the prettiest babe that e’er I nursed. An I might live to see thee married once, I have my wish.”
“Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.”

6. Character Foil Lady Capulet Nurse Formal Refined Detached from Juliet
Earthy (course and unrefined)
Crude-humored
Warm and loving

7. Act I, scene iv
Romeo
Mercutio
Benvolio

9. Act I, scene iv Mercutio Romeo
“Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.”
“You are a lover.”
“And so did I. / That dreamers often lie.”
Queen Mab speech
“True, I talk of dreams; / Which are the children of an idle brain, / begot of nothing but vain fantasy”
“You have dancing shoes / With nimble soles; I have a soul of lead / So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.”
“I dreamt a dream to night.”
“In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.”
“for my mind misgives / Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars”

10. Character Foil Mercutio Romeo Realist Jokester
Believes you should enjoy life
Dreamer
Usually more serious
Believes in the ideals of passionate love

11. Foils in R&J Tybalt (hates peace) and Benvolio (peacemaker)
Mrs. Capulet (uninvolved) and the nurse (motherly)
Mercutio (realist) and Romeo (dreamer)
Paris (“head” choice) and Romeo (“heart” choice)

12. HW: My Personal Foil
Create a character profile for your personal foil. Think about the personality traits that you possess and write about a fictional character who would be the opposite of you.

13. Speaking Parts – I.v. Capulet Servant Romeo Tybalt Juliet Nurse
Benvolio

14. If I profane with my unworthiest hand This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this: My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, Which mannerly devotion shows in this, For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too? Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer. O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do. They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair. Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake. Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take.

16. End of Act I!
Explain the change that happens in Romeo between the beginning and end of Act I. What does this reveal about his character?

17. Act II, scene i
Having left the feast, Romeo decides that he cannot go home. He must instead try to find Juliet. He climbs a wall bordering the Capulet property and leaps down into the Capulet orchard. Benvolio and Mercutio enter, calling out for Romeo. They are sure he is nearby, but Romeo does not answer. Exasperated and amused, Mercutio mocks Romeo’s feelings for Rosaline in an obscene speech. Mercutio and Benvolio exit under the assumption that Romeo does not want to be found. In the orchard, Romeo hears Mercutio’s teasing. He says to himself, “He jests at scars that never felt a wound” (2.1.43).

18. Speaking Parts – II.ii
Romeo
Juliet
Nurse

19. The famous balcony scene