Why does romeo speak in oxymorons

Why should that be? The negative feelings that, logically should extinguish passion, jealousy, anger, resentment, in reality make it seem stronger. Even though the love of Romeo and Juliet has been defined as innocent and sweet, it obviously obeys that law. How is this possible? They both love Hermia at the beginning of the play and then, later into the night, they both love Helena. The mimetic agreement of two lovers is really the worst possible disagreement.

The same is true of the two girls. The one invariant in the whole system is universal rivalry which can only breed universal frustration…. If you believe that this law is defeated each time one of the rivals decisively triumphs over the other, you are mistaken. The victor appropriates the disputed object but his resulting happiness does not last. A safely possessed object is an object that no powerful model and rival designates to us and it quickly looses its mimetic allure.

The only objects that remain permanently desirable are inaccessible objects, the ones designated by models too powerful to be vanquished. The honest reason why the course of true love never did, never does and never will run smooth is that this so-called true love is really not true at all; it is a mimetic desire unable and unwilling to acknowledge its own mimetic nature, a desire that becomes really intense and durable only when it is frustrated by a victorious model and rival.

It is the mimetic mechanism that creates its own nemesis by always preferring the mediated to the unmediated, the inaccessible, therefore, to the accessible. The inaccessible woman often combines the roles of object and model, or mediator. She knows how to keep her lover at bay in order to insure his continued enslavement to her. She plays the mimetic game with consummate skill and makes the poet jealous. She knows how to exploit the laws of mimetic desire to her own advantage. Mimetic desire is the infallible recipe for a life of endless frustration, perfectly exemplified by Duke Orsino in Twelfth Night.

Since intense love is always unrewarded, it always coincides with an intense resentment of the beloved. There is no love that does not entail some hatred and, reciprocally, no hatred that cannot mysteriously convert to intense passion, if only for an instant, as in the case of Aufidius and Coriolanus. It is rooted in the way erotic relations really were in that world, subject to the same type of frustrations and dysfunctionalities that dominate our own cultural world today, in an even more conspicuous and brutal manner.

It corresponds to the endless impasse of courtly life, or salon life. Shakespeare knows that his public is unable to conceive passionate desire except in terms of oxymora, in other words in terms of extreme frustration. Thanks to the murder of Tybalt, thanks to the bloodfeud, Shakespeare can bring the oxymoron back into the picture under false pretenses, surreptitiously in other words.

The death of Tybalt in a duel is not a criminal offense, since Romeo did everything he could to avoid it. It is a mere pretext, really, for the avalanche of oxymora that follows. To make this violence seem legitimate, instead of rooting it where it really belongs, in the erotic relations themselves, Shakespeare systematically projected it onto the bloodfeud. It lacks the spice that only a little violence between the lovers can bring to their relationship.

Shakespeare needs the mimetic disturbances that the oxymora suggest but he cannot give Juliet the usual reasons lovers have to be angry at each other without tarnishing their perfect image of true love, without destroying the myth he has decided to give us.

Shakespeare does everything he has to do under the mask of the bloodfeud. He has Juliet unleash a veritable storm of oxymora without making her sound like the dark lady in the Sonnets. In order to conjure up the feeling of intense passion that his public expects, without paying the price that this choice entails, he must resort to some contraband violence and this is precisely what the bloodfeud is there to provide.

Thanks to the bloodfeud, Shakespeare can give the impression of intense jealousy without any unwanted consequences for the purity of the true love between Romeo and Juliet. She is a very simple woman and a loyal member of the great Capulet clan.

Quite understandably, she wishes that Juliet would forget her passion for Romeo. When she hears words of intense hatred for this young man she takes them at face value therefore, and she feels greatly relieved. Juliet seems to be talking like a loyal Capulet once again and the nurse welcomes the change.

She applies her commonsense to the great tirade and she misunderstands it. She falls into the trap that all people hysterically in love set for those around them.

She assumes that Juliet means what she says and says what she means. How does Shakespeare show the confusion Romeo is feeling about Rosaline? Romeo says:. He feels that love is soft and gentle and simultaneously heavy. In Act 1 Scene 1, Romeo talks to Benvolio about his love for Rosaline and the effect that love is having on him. The oxymoron "darkness visible," for instance, captures the sense of darkness being not just the lack of light, but also a tangible, terrible thing.

Antonym pairs—such as good and bad, light and dark, or strong and weak—do not create a new, deeper meaning. Instead, each pair of words describes a range of possible traits on a spectrum, such as from good to bad, or from light to dark. Oxymoron Examples Oxymoron in Prose Oxymorons can add color, humor, and meaning to language in all sorts of ways.

Oxymoron in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare used a great many oxymorons in his plays. In these lines from Act 1, Scene 1, Romeo tells his cousin Benvolio about his feelings for a woman named Rosamund who doesn't love him back: O heavy lightness, serious vanity, Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!

Oxymoron in Shakespeare's Macbeth The following oxymoron occurs repeatedly throughout Macbeth. This first example is from the play's opening scene and it is part of a charm chanted by witches: Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air. Oxymoron in Vladimir Nabokov's Ada Nabokov's novel Ada tells the story of Van and Ada, a sister and brother who meet as teenagers and fall in love, believing that they are cousins.

In this example, Nabokov describes Ada, seen through Van's eyes, absorbed in one of her favorite activities: On those relentlessly hot July afternoons, Ada liked to sit on a cool piano stool of ivoried wood at a white-oilcloth'd table in the sunny music room, her favorite botanical atlas open before her, and copy out in color on creamy paper some singular flower Oxymoron in "The Sounds of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel: Paul Simon wrote the song The Sounds of Silence about the difficulty people have in communicating with one another, but the lyrics were later interpreted as a reference to the Vietnam War a war that many would say was full of contradictions : Hello darkness, my old friend I've come to talk with you again Because a vision softly creeping Left its seeds while I was sleeping And the vision that was planted in my brain Still remains Within the sound of silence Why Do Writers Use Oxymorons?

Other Helpful Oxymoron Resources The Wikipedia Page on Oxymoron: A very thorough explanation which also discusses the use of oxymorons for comedic effect. The Dictionary Definition of Oxymoron: A basic definition and etymology of the term. Oxymoron List: An extensive list of oxymorons and paradoxes, also the online home-base for an international community of oxymoron-lovers.

Note: many of these examples are actually contradictions in terms and not actual oxymorons, but it's still a helpful resource if you pick and choose carefully. Cite This Page. Sign up. Literary Terms Related to Oxymoron. See all Literary Terms Sign up! PDF downloads of all LitCharts literature guides, and of every new one we publish. Detailed quotes explanations with page numbers for every important quote on the site. Teacher Editions with classroom activities for all titles we cover.

Line-by-line modern translations of every Shakespeare play and poem. Definitions and examples of literary terms and devices. Instant PDF downloads. Refine any search. If he be married, My grave is like to be my wedding bed. This shows that Juliet is very desperate towards her feelings for Romeo, and him not loving her is not worth living.

The message about love is that it is complicated. It is shown by Romeo trying to be with Rosaline and Juliet. Shakespeare shows love is complicated by Romeo and Rosaline.

Shakespeare uses paradoxes in The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet to show the differences and similarities of love and hate. The contrast of his dark, moody, and wallowing attitude against the bright burning light of the torch, suggests that some new and burning desire might enter into the scene soon. Fortunately for Romeo, this will present itself in the form of Juliet. Juliet feels conflicted and confused when she finds out that Romeo killed her cousin.

In Romeo and Juliet written by William Shakespeare, the characters of Romeo and Juliet teach the readers three important lessons in their tragic love story. These characters show the importance to communicate effectively, thinking before an action, and understanding that all actions have consequences.