Evaluate Key Quotations and their Impact in 'Romeo and Juliet'

In the exam, you will need to able to support your ideas with quotations from the exam extract and from the play as a whole.

You should try to build a bank of quotations for each character and theme and learn these so that you can use them readily in your exam response.

For a higher mark in the exam, you should try to analyse quotations closely and evaluate their impact and consider how they reflect the key contextual factors surrounding the play.

The diagram below shows how we can analyse quotations for the highest marks in the exam:

''Methinks I see thee....As one dead in the bottom of a tomb"      Dramatic Irony and foreshadowing      The audience know that Juliet's vision will come true as Shakespeare has already told his audience about Romeo and Juliet's death in the prologue    Shakespeare's intention was to explore the idea of fate reflecting the religious beliefs of the Elizabethan society he was writing in.

So, for each quotation you use, think about:

- what language/structural/dramatic devices has the writer used and what effect do these have?

- how do the quotations reflect something about the key contextual factors surrounding the play?

In this activity, we will practise evaluating the impact of quotations in this way.

You should always refer to your own text when working through these examples.  These quotations are for reference only.