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Romeo and Juliet - Themes
The imagery of flowers is often used in the play.

Romeo and Juliet - Themes

This GCSE English Literature quiz takes a look at themes in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Works of literature always deal with multiple themes. Those which are obvious may obscure for a little while the very subtle. Themes interact with one another so that it can be misleading to talk of a single theme in isolation. Setting, character, plot and dialogue are all important means of developing the themes of a text. Pay close attention to concepts and ideas which arise in different parts of the text; these are its dominant themes. Differing aspects of these themes are developed through different characters and comparing these aspects is a useful method of analysis.

Follow the development of a theme over the course of a text by paying attention to related ideas and the different ways in which these are expressed.

1 .
The imagery of flowers is often used in the play to symbolise which of the following?
The hidden dangers in the beautiful and fragile
The beauty of youth
The fleeting nature of life
All of the above
Flowers, besides being Juliet's choice of metaphor for Romeo, symbolise youth, its beauty, fragility and fleeting nature. Flowers also represent hidden dangers and death, as they can be used to make both medicine and poison
2 .
Romeo's sorrow at the beginning of the play is related to which of the following themes?
Love
Hatred
Death
Fate
When the audience first encounters Romeo, he is sorrowful at Rosaline's refusal to return his love
3 .
Which character frequently recalls the theme of nature as it is related to reproduction?
Nurse
Tybalt
Capulet
Capulet's Wife
Nurse frequently refers to breastfeeding, sex and pregnancy. Her jokes present these aspects of life as natural and expected
4 .
Which of the following statements by Capulet's Wife is filled with deadly irony?
"This sight of death is as a bell / That warns my old age to a sepulchre"
"Tonight she's mewed up to her heaviness"
"Some grief shows much of love"
"I would the fool were married to her grave"
Juliet's mother's unthinking wish becomes dark truth
5 .
Juliet's grave is mentioned throughout the play. With which of the following is it often linked?
Her bridal bed
A forest
A nun's cell
Her future husband
Juliet describes her grave as her bridal bed in the first act of the play and Paris uses the same phrase in the final act
6 .
Which of the following expresses Verona's displeasure with the long-running feud?
Mercutio's curse
The response of the citizens to the street fight in the first scene of the play
The Prince's reference to the "thrice-disturbed quiet" of the streets
All of the above
Despite his own hot-headedness, Mercutio's curse reminds the audience that both families share equally in their responsibility for the violence. The citizens in the first scene shout, "Down with the Capulets. Down with the Montagues"
7 .
The opening scene stages a fight which begins with the biting of a thumb by a servant, before drawing in the most senior members of the Montague and Capulet families and ends with the Prince's threat of death. Which of the following themes does this scene NOT introduce?
Hatred and violence
The shaping of behaviour by unthinking loyalty
Nature
The impulsiveness of youth
The various loyalties and ingrained behaviours would lead to death without the Prince's arrival on the scene
8 .
In the Prologue, the Chorus gives a brief summary of the play. Which of the following phrases used in the Prologue does NOT relate to the theme of fate?
"Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean"
"The fatal loins of these two foes"
"A pair of star-crossed lovers"
"Misadventured piteous overthrows"
"Misadventure", "star-crossed", and "fatal" are various terms used to refer to fate, and particularly to ill, rather than good, fortune
9 .
Romeo repeatedly compares Juliet to which of the following?
A musical instrument
A flower
A bird
A source of light
Romeo compares Juliet not just to light, but to the brightest sources of light, beginning with his famous line, "But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? / It is the east, and Juliet is the sun." When he opens her tomb, he exclaims that it is filled with her light
10 .
Capulet's Wife attempts to stop her husband from joining the fight in Act One, Scene One, saying: "A crutch, a crutch — why call you for a sword?" To which of the following themes does her mockery most relate?
Marriage and family alliances
Romantic love
Youth and age
Fate
She mocks her husband by implying infirmity. Interestingly, the stage directions at this point refer to him as "old Capulet", highlighting the contrast between the head of the family and its unruly younger members
You can find more about this topic by visiting BBC Bitesize - Themes

Author:  Sheri Smith

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