Act 3 Scene 1: The Montague/Capulet World War

Prompt A

Just to be clear, I am not saying that the rivalry between the Montagues and the Capulets is anywhere close to being on the scale of a World War, but it does have some similarities to WWI. According to history class, WWI was started by a 'small' fight between Austria and Serbia, but the many alliances between the countries caused the major parts of Europe, at the time, involved with the fight. Similarly, in Act 3 Scene 1, Tybalt and Mercutio are exchanging retorts, when Romeo comes in. Tybalt then wants to fight, and Mercutio asks him to either fight him or run, and Tybalt decides to fight Mercutio, eventually killing him. This causes a small chain reaction, where Romeo fights Tybalt, and kills him. This then gets the Capulets and Montagues mad at each other. This is similar to the chain reaction that started WWI.