Deej, I would add to Ms. Charleston-Yawp's excellent and thorough exposition by encouraging you to also look at Act 2, scene 4 and his reference to the "blind bow-boy." Mercutio's criticism of Romeo's lovesick nature continues there and Meructio's ongoing argument that love gets in the way of good, ribald fun.
Deej, question for you: who does Mercutio turn his attention to next, after going off on love? Who or what does he go off on next? (See the links below.)
My question gets to blindness as an overall theme, which connects to the motifs of light and dark. People act blindly in love, and Mercutio means romantic love when he criticizes, but they also act blindly where else? Out of what kind of love, and out of what other kinds of emotions? Answers are found in this scene and in Act 3 where blindness drives the actions of the crisis scene. Ironically, these blind actions and choices take place in the hot, uncompromising light of the afternoon, and Romeo must flee into darkness for it.
You can argue that many are blind with love in this play. Is Mercutio's characterization that "if love be blind, love cannot hit the mark" true for all types of love in this play? Romantic, platonic, a father's love, and so forth? There's an interesting spiritual reference in Mercutio's line, since sin literally means, "missing the mark." Interesting! What's love's greatest sin in this play? Its blindness?
I hope our comments lead you to some deeper questioning and analysis. You probably know that you can search the text for the word "blind" and see how often and where it surfaces, so you can gather all the quotes you can for your interpretation.
No comments:
Post a Comment