Why did Shakespeare began romeo and Juliet with a fight scene?

Answer 1

Shakespeare's technique, in telling the end of a story first, then showing the steps that led to that end, is not unknown. It has been used particularly in film, where we start with the ending and then by a series of flashbacks, show how that ending is reached.

Shakespeare used prologues in other plays, particularly histories, and did refer to the outcomes, especially when they were well known already. A lot of people may have already known how the story of Romeo and Juliet came out, so it was less of a spoiler.

Both of the "plays within plays" in Hamlet and Midsummer Night's Dream, use prologues and dumb-shows to anticipate the action of the play. Shakespeare did not do this often, but it was clearly a dramatic custom, and one which he lampooned in Dream.

His reason for using this dramatic custom, which he did not normally favour, in this particular case, was that he wished the outcome of the story to be a matter of fate, of events beyond the control of Romeo and Juliet. It is easier to believe in fate when the outcome is known beforehand. Foreknown equals foreordained in most peoples' minds.

Answer 2

because it shows the true love romeo and Juliet share. It also starts foreshadowing their deaths because they plan to elope knowing that neither of their families will approve something horrific is bound to happen.

Answer 3

By starting the play with a fight between the Montagues and the Capulets, he's showing the audience that these two families do not like each other and haven't liked each other for years. He's showing that they are enemies. Which then establishes the irony that Romeo Montague falls in love with Juliet Capulet.

Answer 4

Romantic stories all follow the same pattern, but there are two main variations. In the first, the would-be lovers are blocked by internal factors: their attitudes, preconceptions, pride, prejudice, feelings of inadequacy or resentment. In the second, the would-be lovers are blocked by external factors: one of them is kidnapped by slavers, or of an impossibly different class, or is married to someone else. In the first class of romantic story, which we see in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing or Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, the story ends when the internal barriers come down and the lovers are able to declare their love, so there is no declaration of love early in the story. Romeo and Juliet is a romantic story of the second kind. In this kind of story, the lovers declare their love to each other early in the story, because there are no internal barriers to their love. The problem is that, although they know they love each other, what can they do about it?

Answer 5

because romeo came to the ball, and Tybalt thought he did it to laugh at their solemnity