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Romeo And Juliet Character Analysis

Decent Essays
A foil is a character that is used to enhance the characteristics of another character (most likely the story's protagonist) by a clear contrast between the two characters. To help bring the characters in Romeo and Juliet to life, William Shakespeare creates foils to compare his main characters to and show why they are better or a better couple in the case of Romeo and Juliet. While some of the foil characters are obvious, like in the case of Romeo and Paris, or Juliet and Rosaline, in other cases it’s harder to see the contrast and the significance, as in the case of Romeo and Mercutio. The role of the foil characters in Romeo and Juliet is also to show what could have happened if the protagonists had made different choices. Throughout Romeo and Juliet it is made clear that Romeo and Paris are foils as the both are in love Juliet and wish to marry her. However this often leads people to forgetting about Mercutio and his clear contrast with Romeo. We see their differing opinions clearly in Act 1, Scene 4, in which Mercutio tries to persuade Romeo to join them in crashing the Capulet's' feast. Romeo takes love very seriously, pining and yearning for Rosaline, while Mercutio treats love as a joke and something to be wary of. When Romeo says he cannot join them because he feels too heavy-hearted, Mercutio tells Romeo to "borrow Cupid's wings, And soar with them above a common bound" (1.4.18-19) Furthermore, when Romeo argues that love is "rough," "rude," "boist'rous," and
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