Romeo and Juliet - Act III - Summary and Analysis

This is a summary and analysis of ACT II from William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
Hello everyone! I’m BuffEnglish, and I’m here to buff up your English skills by giving you all the details you need to know about some of the world’s best literature. Today we’re discussing ACT THREE from William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
The third act in Shakespeare’s plays is typically the climax, where all the key, game-changing events occur that determine the outcomes the characters will face in the later acts. In Romeo and Juliet it’s fair to say that it’s Act III that officially turns the story from a possible romance into a definite tragedy.
We enter this act back on the streets of Verona, with Benvolio begging Mercutio that they go inside, fearing there will be some kind of a fight with the Capulets if they stick around. Interestingly, Mercutio scolds Benvolio, citing several prior instances of Benvolio starting just such a fight for practically no reason with random citizens, which is kind of surprising since Benvolio throughout the play seems like the peacemaking pacifist. But I love these glimpses we get of characters from Shakespeare, painting them as complex individuals instead of predictable, one-dimensional people.
And - as fate would have it - moments later Tybalt and friends enter the scene, seeking Romeo. If you remember from Act II, Tybalt had noticed Romeo crashing the Capulet party and sent him a letter challenging him to a duel. Benvolio and Mercutio both know this, but have completely different reactions to Tybalt here. Benvolio - typically more practical - cautions that they take things indoors or “coldly reason of your grievances.” Mercutio, however, is in a completely different mood.
We’ve seen Mercutio in previous scenes being a bit of a loose cannon, governed as much by his wit and passions as by anything else. And here we see these elements fully on display. Now, we have to wonder how serious Mercutio is as the scene goes along. On the one hand, we could interpret Mercutio’s following interactions with Tybalt as dead serious, angry, and provoking. After all, he’s no fan of Tybalt, and Tybalt is actively looking to duel with his friend Romeo. But then again, we could see a more light hearted side of Mercutio - still no fan of Tybalt, but able to reign in his passions and approach the situation with a tense levity.
But then here comes Romeo himself, just in time to confuse everybody. A lot of the plot of Romeo and Juliet revolves around dramatic irony, where the audience knows things that some of the characters do not. The first major moment is right here: Romeo is literally coming from having just gotten married to Juliet, and we can imagine he’s riding a bit of a high right here. So when Tybalt tries to fight him, and Romeo replies “I do protest I never injured thee / But love thee better than thou canst devise,” everyone is rather shocked. Did a Montague just say he loves a Capulet? I mean, Romeo has always been a little different, but this is just…weird. I like looking at how different performances of the play render each character’s degree of surprise.
So Romeo just refuses to fight. And Mercutio - still feeling surly - offers to fight Tybalt. In fact, he insults Romeo, calling his demeanor “calm, dishonorable, vile submission.” Mercutio and Tybalt fight, and Romeo literally draws his sword and attempts to intervene, but something happens that leads to Tybalt stabbing Mercutio. Again we have to consider here what exactly is going on - how serious are both of these combatants? Everyone knows very well that the penalty for brawling in the streets is execution, so are they earnestly engaging in a brawl? And did Tybalt mean to stab Mercutio? Did he mean to kill him? Or was it just an accident? These are not questions answered directly by the script, and different directors might choose to stage this differently.
But once Mercutio is stabbed - thanks, according to him, to Romeo’s intervention - the mood of the scene turns ghastly. Mercutio is literally bleeding out, and we see his dialogue vacillate between making dark puns, such as, “Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man” to repeating his most famous line: “A plague on both your houses!” He actually says this three times, and I wonder if each repetition of the curse on both families gets more serious, as the truth of his imminent death becomes more apparent to him. Mercutio is, if you remember, a relative of the prince, and not directly related to the Montagues or Capulets, and it’s as though his death is a casualty of the larger feud the families are engaging in.
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