The audience knows the ending from the first minute.
Moment 1 of 20 · Act 1, Prologue
The Chorus tells the ending
Setting: The stage, before the action begins
Before any character appears, a Chorus speaks a fourteen-line sonnet. It sets the play in Verona, describes an old quarrel between two families of equal rank that has broken out again, and tells the audience that a pair of lovers born to those families will die, and that only their deaths will end the feud.
Who
- Chorus
Why it matters
The audience knows the ending from the first minute, so the play asks how and why the lovers die, not whether they will.
Fate and destinyConflict and violenceLove