Mercutio Flashcards
Introduction
Shakespeare uses mercutio as a vehicle to criticise the toxic masculinity within Verona, which thereby leads to the tragic death of a young man. Mercutio changes from being a man of comedy to tragedy, as he is embroiled into this feud with which he has no personal connection to, allowing Shakespeare to highlight the futility of the conflict. Furthermore, Shakespeare uses mercutio’s Queen Mab speech to help warn us against the impetuous nature of dreaming, as they are simply projections of our own desires which have painful consequences. Through Mercutio’s foolish decisions for the sake of male bravado, Shakespeare uses mercutio’s death a catalyst for the several following deaths of the younger generation, highlighting how quickly violence spreads warning us against the impetuous behaviour of youth and highlights the destructive nature of pride and toxic masculinity.
Key features of mercutio
- confuses lust with love
If love be rough with you be rough with love, prick love for pricking
Reinforces mercutio’s harsh and raw perception of love, as it suggests that he views love as a violent action. The use of the antimetaboles alludes to the subversions of love, as the symmetry makes love seem complete and perfect, however this is quite different to mercutio’s lustful ideas of love. The violent verbs ‘prick’ and ‘pricking’ create phallic imagery which shows Shakespeare’s audience how he views love as purely sexual, whilst also depicting the dominance that men had over women in Elizabethan relationships.
“Dreamers often lie”
Here he implies that dreams are fabricated realities and they result in impulsive behaviour, so dreams are not reality but rather a warped perception of reality
“No bigger than an agate stone”
He believes that dreams are small and insignificant and we should not pay attention to them but the more we chase dreams they become more harmful as they lead to a warped perception of reality and thus impulsive actions. Queen Mab is so small yet she has so much power to cause so much harm. He emphasises that dream can hypnotise and control you lean leading to a subversive sinister effect
Description of Man - “the size an agate stone” “tickling a persons nose” “then he dreams of cutting throats”
Through the frenzied and chaotic structure of the Queen Mab speech, Mercutio emphasises how quickly we can lose control of our dreams. Although Mab is initially described as miniature, she later ‘presses women down’ emphasising how easily dreams can gain momentum and escalate into uncontrollable nightmares. Mags actions become increasingly sinister. Initially her actions are mischievous and good humoured ‘tickling a parsons nose’ but as the speech progresses she becomes ‘angry Mab’ . She becomes more startling, violent and unpredictable, by plaguing lovers wit blisters and making ‘soldiers dream of cutting foreign throats’, this implies dreams can have dire and dangerous consequences as they are merely manifestations of our own subconscious.
True, I talk of dreams, which are the children of an idle brain, begot of nothing but mere fantasy
Through his Queen Mab speech, mercutio warns against the dangers of dreaming. ‘Mere fanatsy’ emphasises the insubstantiality of dreams, which mercutio implies are dangerous illusions and fabrications, resulting from a failure to think rationally and detachment from reality.
Aptronym of mercutio’s name
Shakespeares use of an aptronym is revealing, Mercutio is a mercurial character, and like many of the young men presented in the play, his volatile and unpredictable nature ultimately leads to his downfall. Through Mercutio‘s altercation with Tybalt and resulting death, Shakespeare cautions the impetuous behaviour of youth and highlights of destructive nature of pride and toxic masculinity which led to Mercutios stepping in to fight Tybalt
‘Bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon’
Mercutio is bawdy and uses sexual innuendo around the nurse, leaving her very offended as he jokes about her being a prostitution allowing Shakespeare to criticise the objectification of women in patriarchal verona
‘Consort’
The use of the repetition of ‘consort’ reveals how infuriated mercutio has become, as Tybalt questions who he spends time with,
‘O Calm dishonourable vile submission’
Mercutio makes fun of Romeo as he sees him being weak by not fighting back. The noun ‘submission’ feminises Romeo as an attempt to goad and antagonise Romeo into fighting for the sake of male bravado. This emphasises mercutio’s aggressive behaviour, as he acts for the sake of male bravado allowing Shakespeare to critics toxic masculinity, by which friends antagonise friends to conform to the societal expectations of this toxic masculinity.
‘A scratch, a scratch’
He attempts to downplay his injury for the sake of male bravado and hide his vulnerability.
“A plague o both your houses’
In mercutio’s final moments he finally realises the futility of the conflict as he removes himself from the feud and curses the two houses. This adds to the tragedy as his epiphany came too late, furthermore mercutio was the comedic character and is now now become serious, which helps accentuate how farcical the feud is. The use of the parallelism between the two houses emphasises how both are equally as responsible and deserve pain and punishment for their futile ways, despite mercutio’s allegiance to Romeo.
‘They have made worms meet of me”
The dysphemism of ‘worms meat’ evokes a gruesome image for Romeo and Tybalt, and the two families to dwell on. It acts as a reminder of the grim consequences of the frivolous violence as Mercutio‘s corpse will decompose and he’ll become food for insects, a blunt reminder of the consequences of this honour and testosterone fuelled feud.
