A few days ago I said that Benvolio and Tybalt are foils who, at their very cores, just want the same thing, AND NOW IT’S TIME TO GET INTO THAT!! Here you go, @stainedmoons 🫶
Benvolio’s name means “good-will” or “peacemaker.” This is his purpose: in a world shaped by senseless violence, he is the one who tries to end it with its impassionate opposite, peace. His opening lines, the audience’s introduction to him and Shakespeare’s one chance to properly arrange such a meeting, are him quite literally trying to stop Sampson and Gregory and Abraham from fighting.
Tybalt’s means “brave people,” and while Benvolio is brave, bravery commonly alludes to some sort of fighting—and that is just what Tybalt does. He, as Mercutio points out, is a trained fencer who learned to duel at the finest schools possible.
In their first scene together, the opening scene of the play, Tybalt comes in and sees Benvolio with his sword drawn, and immediately takes it as an invitation to fight him. He tells Benvolio how he hates him and his whole family as he hates hell, and their fight begins. Benvolio, who is not a skilled fighter and, other than this scene, never lifts his sword but, in some productions, to aid Romeo in trying to part Mercutio and Tybalt in their fight, or to point the blade at his own breast during his final monologue. He also loses his battle against Tybalt, and is wounded before the prince can stop the mass brawl. In the production I saw over the summer, he stupidly grabbed Tybalt’s sword, giving Tybalt the opportunity to pull it away, slicing Benvolio’s palm. Whenever Benvolio tries to end a fight with reason and bargaining, Tybalt is there to feed the flames.
Neither talk very much, and when they do, it is to their own purposes. Benvolio spends the entire play stopping brawls, defending himself and his loved ones to the adults, talking Romeo off the ledge, and reasoning with Mercutio and Tybalt, begging for the passionate and overly-emotional characters he surrounds himself with to see sense. Tybalt spends the two days of his life that we get to see starting fights he can claim he had no hand in beginning, challenging Benvolio’s friends to duels, and walking around behind a facade of bloodthirsty rage.
Then, in their final scripted appearances, they switch roles momentarily: Tybalt fights Romeo, yes, but he doesn’t get a final monologue, or even any proper last words. It’s not that he goes down without a fight, but in his final moments, he loses the upper hand, to the point where he can’t even get a word out before he is slain. Benvolio’s final words, meanwhile, are more violent than anything he spoke before: “This is the truth, or let Benvolio die.” But still, the only victim of this threat, this death wish, is himself.
They are still very similar, though. Neither are master wordsmiths, as Mercutio is, but they are still good with them nonetheless, and in the same way. Benvolio’s two monologues are him explaining the events of bloody civil brawls to the adults of the play, going over every detail and leaving nothing out, never once being punished himself. Tybalt, as mentioned before, hunts for clauses in his opponent’s speech, so he can convince himself and anyone who asks that he did not start a single fight, manipulating the truth but never once concealing or completely altering it.
They are also both the opposite of what their uncles want them to be. Benvolio is diplomatic, honest, obedient, and loyal. He’s bad with a sword and can’t even lie to Lord Montague about why he gets involved in the fights he does end up in. He will never fully become the man his uncle wishes him to be. However, that doesn’t mean he’s immune to his world’s violent influences. He still follows Romeo and Mercutio in their mischief, sneaking into the masque and mocking the nurse, and gets into an entire argument with Mercutio about whether or not he’s argumentative. He is not physically violent, but he is not immune to anger, either.
Tybalt, meanwhile, tries so hard to be the man Lord Capulet wants him to be, picking fights, sending out challenges, demanding Montague blood, and thus, is an embarrassment to his uncle. Lord Capulet is as bloodthirsty as Lord Montague, yes, and he is so aggressive that he has given Tybalt the wrong idea, that he can just act upon his violent urges whenever he pleases (Lord Capulet is, of course, a hypocrite).
Benvolio and Tybalt, at the end of the day, want the same things: to be seen, to be heard, and to stop having to fight.
