Role in The Play
Before Romeo meets Juliet, he loves Rosaline, Capulet's niece. He describes her as wonderfully beautiful: "The all-seeing sun / ne'er saw her match since first the world begun." Rosaline, however, chooses to remain celibate; Romeo says: "She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow / Do I live dead that live to tell it now." This is the source of his depression, and he makes his friends unhappy; Mercutio comments: "That same pale, hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline, torments him so that he will sure run mad." Benvolio urges Romeo to sneak into a Capulet gathering where, he claims, Rosaline will look like "a crow" alongside the other beautiful women. Romeo agrees, but doubts Benvolio's assessment. After Romeo sees Juliet his feelings suddenly change: "Did my heart love 'til now? Forswear it, sight / For I ne'er saw true beauty 'til this night." Because their relationship is sudden and secret, Romeo's friends and Friar Laurence continue to speak of his affection for Rosaline throughout much of the play.
Read more about this topic: Rosaline
Famous quotes containing the words role in the, role and/or play:
“Language makes it possible for a child to incorporate his parents’ verbal prohibitions, to make them part of himself....We don’t speak of a conscience yet in the child who is just acquiring language, but we can see very clearly how language plays an indispensable role in the formation of conscience. In fact, the moral achievement of man, the whole complex of factors that go into the organization of conscience is very largely based upon language.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)
“A few [women] warrant our attention not because they have the answer but because they have rejected the mentality that insists there must be one answer. What makes them role models is not how much or how little they work, how many or how few hats they wear, but rather how well they understand, and accept, that for all rewards there will be commensurate sacrifice; for all gains, some loss; for any pleasure, some pain.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“This play holds the season’s record [for early closing], thus far, with a run of four evening performances and one matinee. By an odd coincidence it ran just five performances too many.”
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967)