romeo and juliet - mercutio Flashcards
“prick love for prickling, and you beat love down”
The plosive lexis (lexis being a fancy word for ‘group of words’ in this case 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.
“A plague O both your houses, they have made worms meat of me”
The first sentence is repeated twice within Act 3 Scene 1. Thus, the repetition of this phrase enforces the impression that Mercutio, unlike the majority of characters within the play, completely disregards fate. Rather, he instils his opinion that it was the pointless feud between the two families that had caused his death. Mercutio describes his death in euphemistic as he does not actually say that Tybalt had murdered him but rather suggests that he had made a “worms’ meat” of him.
