Tybalt’s fury in Act 1, Scene 5.
Act 1, Scene 5 is all about Tybalt.
Hearing a voice that “should be a Montague” - already an insight into a character who knows his enemy eerily well - Tybalt declares,
Now, by the stock and honour of my kin,
To strike him dead, I hold it not a sin.
Considering the strict Catholic belief system in Verona, one which is a recurring theme across the play, inserting itself through the critical role of Friar Lawrence, it is immense that Tybalt’s hatred of the Capulets is more powerful than even the Sixth Commandment, the word of God, for he considers killing a Montague not a ‘sin’. The rhyming couplet of ‘kin’ and ‘sin’ creates a connection between the ideas of sin and familial loyalty, the suggestion being the former is able to overpower the latter.
We also see his fury as he is forced to repress his anger by Lord Capulet, unable to pursue his conflict with Romeo, which is driven by his self-perceived responsibility to uphold the honour of the Capulet family. In the Elizabethan era, status and honour were crucial, and Tybalt’s characterisation reflects his. He declares,
“I will withdraw, but this intrusion shall Now seeming sweet, convert to bitterest gall.”
The juxtaposition of ‘sweet’ and ‘bitterest’ highlights his anger, with ‘sweet’ connoting happiness in contrast to ‘bitterest’. This is accentuated by the use of the superlative form. The noun ‘gall’, said to have poisonous qualities, depicts Tybalt’s spite for Romeo, whilst perhaps also foreshadowing the star-crossed lover’s death to poison.
In ‘gall…bitterest’, Shakespeare creates a semantic field of wrath showing Tybalt to possess a monstrous, unquenchable anger which propels the events of the play - his challenge to Romeo, taken up by Mercutio, Romeo’s vengeance for his slain friend, his consequent banishment, and the tragic deaths of the play’s titular characters.
Tybalt conforms to the rigid code of gender in a patriarchal Elizabethan society, one in which masculinity was synonymous with ideas such aggression, brawling and honour. Tybalt’s truculent behaviour is an accurate reflection of this - he consistently pursues conflict with Romeo. The extent of his anger is shown in his defiance of Lord Capulet’s orders, even placing aside the strict social hierarchy of the Elizabethan era, such is the strength of his emotion.
To speak in rhyming couplets is typical of passionate outpourings of love or extreme emotion, and the rhyme between ‘shall’ and ‘gall’ is a demonstration of the latter, namely Tybalt’s anger. Furthermore, Tybalt’s rhyming couplets directly precede the shared love sonnet of Romeo and Juliet, where the two eponymous characters first meet. This not only serves to undermine the prior scene, and foreshadow how Tybalt’s actions will lead to the deaths of Romeo and Juliet, but also highlights a prominent undercurrent of the play; that love and violence are inextricably intertwined.
In his enormous aptitude for anger and violence, Tybalt starkly juxtaposes the peaceful Benvolio (It is commonly argued that they are foil characters). Yet, it is this anger which is crucial to the plot of the play, to the tragedy which will befall the star-crossed lovers. And, in the aftermath of Act 3, Scene 1, when the play transforms from comedy to tragedy, it is the living Benvolio who is notably absent, and the dead Tybalt who has irreversibly affected the course of events in Verona.
