Madman Mercutio

In the book Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare does an excellent job creating the character of Mercutio. Mercutio is a very difficult character to figure out, which makes him noticeable. Personally, he is the hardest character to figure out what he's up to. When I finally did kind of figure him out, he died. So that didn't really work. I like how Mercutio has multiple personalities. There's the witty Mercutio, the party Mercutio, the suicidal Mercutio, and the reckless Mercutio. It takes time to figure out exactly which one of these personalities he has in the scene, which makes him even more interesting.

When we are first introduced to Mercutio (Act 1 Scene 4) he is immediately thought of as a smart, cunning man. You think this because he says things like "You are a lover. Borrow Cupid's wings and soar with them above a common bound" or "If love be rough with yo, be rough with love. Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down." This introduces you to his cunning side, where he can outsmart anyone daring to challenge him. In Scene 5, you see him as someone you'd love to party with. But, in Act 3 Scene 1 you see a completely other side to Mercutio. The fun, witty man we thought him to be is now gone, and we are introduced to the other sides of Mercutio; the suicidal and reckless personalities. This caught me so off guard, where was the old Mercutio? His reckless personality is presented when they are confronted by Tybalt, and Mercutio challenges Tybalt to a duel. Mercutio is fatally wounded, and spends his last minutes on earth pouring out all the wit he has left in him. When he died I was shocked, he was the one person I didn't want to die.

Mercutio is very similar to the play of Romeo and Juliet itself. At first it seems like a comedy. Everyone is cheerful and having a grand old time. But, like Mercutio, it takes a dark turn. This is when Tybalt and Mercutio die. I think that if Mercutio lived through the whole play (which was highly unlikely from the start) we could have an even better understanding of who he really was. Since he was the first to die, he received the least amount of information about him, which just adds to how mysterious he is.