alexc
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Posts: 14
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Post by alexc on Apr 21, 2011 15:36:32 GMT -5
Why does Romeo choose to specifically use poison to kill himself? How is the use of poisons/ potions in the play important?
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jackl
New Member
Posts: 14
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Post by jackl on Apr 21, 2011 17:08:49 GMT -5
First, poison probably would be the cleanest and least painful way to die at least in 16th century Europe. But I also do think potions/poisons have significance in the play. So far potions/poisons appear to be "the easy way out" for Romeo and Juliet and as we know "the easy way out" leads to tragedy. I also bet poison is a bit of an allusion to plays from Ancient Greece since I think a lot of classical plays have poison in them.
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Post by arelicg on Apr 22, 2011 19:28:27 GMT -5
I agree with Jack, I think the main reason that Romeo chose to use poison to kill himself was because it was the least painful way. It was also probably the best way to ensure his death, and to make sure nobody found him and tried to save him.
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Post by isabels on Apr 23, 2011 19:34:20 GMT -5
I also agree with Jack. It was the lest painful way to die, but it also might have been the fastest way. Something that I thought was ironic was that in Juliet's speech right before she drinks the vial, she is worried that it might be poison and that she won't wake up. She eventually does wake up to discover that Romeo has died from drinking poison. This makes it all the more tragic.
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Post by Aaron E on Apr 24, 2011 17:24:57 GMT -5
Romeo probably chose poison because it would be the least painful and quickest way to die. Because of the time period, there weren't any pills he could take to kill himself, so poison would have just been the easiest way to go about killing himself. Romeo probably wanted to make hi death a clean one also, so stabbing him self or something to that effect wouldn't be an option.
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Post by dylanc on Apr 25, 2011 19:24:09 GMT -5
I agree with everyone in regards to poison being the easiest way to kill ones self, but if it is the easiest way, wouldn't that kind of show something about Romeo and how devoted he is to the entire thing? If he were truly pained beyond living about the death of Juliet, he would have chosen the most dramatic way possible to kill himself. Maybe it is meant to show something about Romeo's character.
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Post by ShakespeareHimself on Sept 18, 2020 12:48:14 GMT -5
Friar Lawrence indicated the use of flowers for both medicine and poison - life and death(in act 2 Scene 3). Shakespeare uses the literary device 'foreshadowing' to essentially predict what would happen at the end of the play.
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