Why does shakespeare tell us the ending before the play begins?

Answer 1

Everyone knows that Romeo and Juliet fall in love and can't make it work because of family conflict. And everyone knows that these "star-crossed" lovers tragically take their own lives when a series of mishaps fate them to be apart. What's the point?

Since the ending of Romeo and Juliet is not in question, reading the play is not merely about getting to the final scene. The familiar plot is not the issue; rather, the point is to understand the culmination of events, climactic moments, extenuating circumstances and character motivations that lead to the inevitable tragedy. It's the journey that counts, not just the destination.

Answer 2

Sometimes it is easier to have an idea of what the play is about before watching it. I have known English teachers who would not take their students to see a play unless they had read it first. That is also why they put program notes in programs. Of course in Shakespeare's day they had no programs so if he wanted to give the audience a heads-up the best way was to have an actor deliver a prologue. A more old-fashioned way was to have a "dumb-show", a pantomime of the action of the scene precede the scene itself (see for example the play within the play in Hamlet or the old tragedy Gorboduc).

Shakespeare rarely used prologues and usually starts the action right off. Plays which have prologues are Henry IV Part II, Henry V, Romeo and Juliet, Pericles, Troilus and Cressida and Henry VIII. The Taming of the Shrew has an "Induction", a kind of framing device and the other thirty plays give no clue of the ending before the play starts.

Answer 3

They are not told much more than the background (it takes place in Verona and there are feuding families) and what could be inferred from a play called a "lamentable tragedy"--the main characters are going to end up dead. That hardly constitutes "the whole story".

In fact, it is less information than you get in the average movie trailer, and movie trailers do not keep people from seeing the movies. In fact, people get intrigued and want to know how these events transpired, which was of course Shakespeare's motive in writing a prologue of that kind.

Answer 4

it was not a surprise ending. The play is called "The Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet". With a title like that, people didn't need a prologue to tell them that things were not going to end well. Shakespeare used the prologue to tell about the setting (the city of Verona), and about the feud between two households, whose children will be the lovers in this play.

Answer 5

When you call the play a tragedy in the title, it doesn't take much guessing to guess the ending anyway. The Prologue tells us more backstory than ending.