Romeo & Juliet: Act II Scene II Literary Devices

[Whitestar]

Hello. I really need help on finding literary devices (simile, metaphor, allusion, personification, and so on) on Romeo and Juliet balcony scene. Been reading the scene for a really long time and only come up with a few. I need 6 for Romeo and 6 for Juliet.

Came up with:
-For stony limits cannot hold love out, (Personification)
-Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye
Than twenty of their swords. (Is this like a hyperbole or oxymoron?)
-He lent me counsel, and I lent him eyes. (Personification)
-O speak again, bright angel! – For thou art
As glorious to this night, being o’er my head,
As is a wingèd messenger of heaven (Simile)

[Cunninglinguist]

This scene is packed with little metaphors, similes/comparisons, etc. which shouldn't be too hard to find. I'll put some of my observations down, though.

As you suggest, the wall Romeo leaps represents the hatred between the two families. Moreover, the act of leaping represents Romeo's transgression of standards.

The orchard itself could represent a number of things. I vote for The Garden of Eden & forbidden fruit.

Romeo describes Juliet at the rising sun; "it is the easy, and Juliet is the sun. / Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon." (sc. 2 l. 4) remember the scene takes place at night/early morning, like most of the most important scenes in the play. Effectually, Romeo is saying that Juliet is the force that transforms night into day. Also, perhaps not intended, there is a sexual metaphor; one rises (wakes up) by the sun. Since Juliet is Romeo's sun, he rises to her (i.e. gets an erection). In any case, for Romeo, the power of language transforms the world. This is then juxtaposed in the same scene when Juliet says: "Tis but thy name that is my enemy. / Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. / What’s Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, / Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part / Belonging to a man. O, be some other name! / What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other word would smell as sweet." Suggesting that without men language means nothing. This also tells us that Juliet is far more conscious of reality than Romeo is. Where Romeo is quick to use poetry, Juliet is more hesitant. Another example: when Romeo swears his love to Juliet by the moon, she protests "O swear not by the moon, th'inconstant moon, / That monthly changes in her circled orb, / Lest that thy love prove likewise variable." But we are invited to question how accurate Romeo's metaphors and similes really are. When he compares Juliet to the sun, does he inadvertently admit that his love would be cyclic? Either way, he dies before he answers this question; but perhaps Shakespeare is saying something about the nature of Romeo's love/infatuation. Or perhaps I'm reading into it too much.

So what might the "envious moon" represent? Whatever it does, it's certainly ironic that he later says: "Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear" (sc. 2 l. 107) in response to Juliet's questioning of Romeo's faith. He swears on the moon that he proclaims Juliet has killed in scene 2 line 4, which, from this reader's perspective, seems to suggest that the love is a self-defeating type. So perhaps Romeo is now implicitly belying his claim that he would be faithful by exhibiting a duplicitous nature. But, since Juliet is not in the audience as we are, she has no way of seeing that. Once again, Romeo does not live long enough to resolve this inconsistency.

Romeo compares Juliet's eyes to stars, then her cheek to the sun, then Juliet herself to an angel, as you have noted, among dark clouds (of hate, presumably).

It is strange how they must leave ere morning comes. Romeo and Juliet's love is light, as it were, in the midst of the darkness of the hate around them. All of their activity together is done in night and darkness, while all the fighting is done in the daytime. So the light of love occurs at night; the dark of hate occurs in day? quite the paradox. Perhaps representing man's capacity to screw with the natural order, as it were? However, at the end of the play this paradox is reconciled when the families concede their follies.

I could keep going on for pages, but I don't want to totally do your homework here...

[Whitestar]

Thank you for the quick reply...but I cannot use those first few lines as the quotes...because my teacher gave those for examples....

[Cunninglinguist]

Thank you for the quick reply...but I cannot use those first few lines as the quotes...because my teacher gave those for examples....

Shame, huh? Oh well. The scene is so rich you can construe a literary device out of nearly every line.

[Whitestar]

Shame, huh? Oh well. The scene is so rich you can construe a literary device out of nearly every line.

Yes, it is a shame. I am not really good with this sort of literature... It just doesn't really make sense to me at all... sighs.