Night Imagery In Romeo And Juliet

Romeo and Juliet is a romantic tragedy that tells the tale of a doomed love between two teenagers. Firstly, Shakespeare’s play uses night and day imagery to express the lovers’ desire for privacy and their need to escape from reality. Secondly, this type of imagery is used to provide metaphors and foreshadow the violent ending of the play. Thus, William Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet, utilizes the motifs of night and day to provide metaphors for the events that take place and creates an interesting contrast between the connotations of this imagery in relation to love. First off, the play’s use of night and day imagery is often used to describe Romeo and Juliet’s attitudes towards the nature of their hidden relationship. The lovers’ appreciation of night displays their need to escape from reality. At night, the two are united. The darkness veils them from the outside
In these cases, night is often used to foreshadow death or an event that plays a large part in the conclusion of the story. For example, before Romeo, Mercutio and Benvolio enter the Capulet’s house for the party, Romeo confesses that he believes that the night will lead to something disastrous, saying he believes “some consequence [is] hanging in the stars (I, iv, 107)”. Prior to the party, Romeo is depressed because Rosaline is not in love with him, and lives in a world of darkness. The light of the stars should bring him joy, but it is as though Romeo is linking this first appearance of light to his downfall. In addition, Romeo often describes Juliet as the sun, like in the balcony scene when he says she drives the envious moon away. However, the sun is only periodically in the sky and must eventually fade in order for the night to take its place. Juliet, like the sun, eventually fades into darkness when she kills herself for Romeo. Unlike the night described above, however, this one is