Two hours later, Romeo killed Juliet’s cousin without any choices, because he had to safeguard his family honor and protect his friend. This was the first sudden change, which formed a huge twister, involving all the roles into the conflict. Because of this, Romeo was exiled and had to leave Juliet. All of these made Juliet sorrowful. Her parents made a misunderstanding and thought that she was sad of his cousin’s death. Therefore, they ordered Juliet to get married with Paris. That was the second sudden change.
It was in vain for Juliet to stand against her parents. So Juliet had to turn to Priest Laurence for help. And Priest Laurence gave her a liquid medicine, which would make her sleep deeply, and look like dead. So long as Romeo came back and took her away, their love and lives would be saved. But unfortunately, the priest did not send the letter to Romeo in time because of the pestilence. That was the third sudden change.
After Romeo came to the Cemetery, he misunderstood that Juliet had died. As a result, he drank the poison. After several minutes, Juliet woke up but she also killed herself for love. These three sudden changes took place closely, nearly without any intermission.
Juliet’s cousin, Tybalt was so arbitrary that Romeo had reached the end of his forbearance and killed him without choices, which seemed to happen by chance. In fact, it was inevitable at the background of the family feud. This first sudden change made the story develop quickly. And the leading roles had to face the reality from then on. Therefore, every action, every sudden change would become the background of the next matter. They pushed the story ahead, made the conflict sharper and sharper. So facing every sudden change, Romeo and Juliet took corresponding measures until the play conflict burst out sharply, reaching its peak. This love story only lasted for four days. The first day, Romeo and Juliet met in a dance party and fell in love with each other at first sight. Then there were three sudden changes in the following three days. The plots of the story were quite well-knitted, and the quick pace of its development corresponds to the character features of Romeo and Juliet, energetic and fast-moving.
4.2 The development of conflict in The Butterfly Lover
The Chinese were an implicit people at that time. Most of the traditional Chinese would not express their feeling directly[8][P7]. And The Butterfly Lover was from the folk legends. Therefore, the development of the conflict went about at a snail’s pace, just like Zhu’s love to Liang. Distinguished with the sudden changes in Romeo and Juliet, there were not any sudden changes in The Butterfly Lover, from beginning to the end, which made the conflict of the play develop slowly.
Both the feelings and actions of the leading roles developed step by step. And there were some intermissions between their actions. The complete story lasted for more than three years, beginning from Zhu going to school and ending by their becoming butterflies. During the three years, so many things happened. Of course, the play plots were not as close as Romeo and Juliet’s. And the conflict was not so tense like Romeo and Juliet’s, either. 英语作文