Theme Of Love In Romeo And Juliet

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The quest to discover the perfect companion to spend the rest of your life with is one of the hardest tasks in life. Shakespeare explores the protagonist’s change in attitude towards love by juxtaposing two relationships: Romeo’s infatuation for Rosaline and his true love for Juliet. In the beginning of the play, Shakespeare introduces us to Romeo’s passionate desire for Rosaline through the use of binary opposition, soliloquy, and vivid imagery. In contrast, when Romeo is addressing Juliet, his language shifts through the use of symbolism, religious, and mythological imagery to reflect his newly found romantic love for Juliet. The dramatic language of Shakespeare’s young lovers in Romeo Juliet serve as a cautionary tale of love, lust and loss which displays their divergent relationships and expression of love as shown throughout the play, and, ultimately, demonstrates that a truly progressive, wholesome and loving relationship must be spiritually based and equally beneficial to both the woman and the man to be worthwhile.
Shakespeare juxtaposes various types of love through imagery and language in Romeo and Juliet as revealed by the flowery and passionate dialogue of Romeo of the Montagues as he falls in love with Juliet of the Capulets in sharp contrast to the sensual and dangerous lust he feels for Rosaline. Shakespeare uses his character’s language to depict Romeo’s feelings for Juliet, and to contrast the pure affection he has for Juliet with the superficial lust felt for Rosaline. Seeing Juliet at the window, Romeo instantly begins to fall in love when he cries, “But soft, what light through yonder breaks/ It is the East, and Juliet is the sun/ Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon” (2.2.3-5). Romeo compares Juliet to ...

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...for each other. Shakespeare explores the growth of his protagonist’s attitude towards love as he depicts the contrasting relationships of Romeo’s love for Rosaline and Juliet. As the hero’s understanding of love matures, the reader witnesses him lifting out of his depression and unrequited infatuation for Rosaline. and experiencing wholesome and respectful love for Juliet who, in turn, returns his love. Despite the dire ending of the play, the passionate relationship of Romeo and Juliet has been a model of pure love for hundreds of generations because unlike so many depictions of romance, it more closely assimilates the model of a healthy relationship defined in Science in Health. Echoing passionate, loving statements, they living each day to the fullest filled with their mutual love for each other while challenging the other to grow spiritually. This is true love.

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