Comparing Love In Romeo And Juliet And Salem Falls

“Youth is full of sport, age's breath is short; Youth is nimble, age is lame; Youth is hot and bold, age is weak and cold; Youth is wild, and age is tame.” - William Shakespeare (The Passionate Pilgrim, Poem XII, lines 5 to 8).

Youth, William Shakespeare describes, is strong and impetuous. Vivid and passionate, young love embodies the golden years of youth and is captured in Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet, as well as in the short story The Lady, or the Tiger? by Frank R. Stockton and in the novel Salem Falls by Jodi Picoult. Young love is bright and fervent but foolish and impulsive, and, in each of these three texts, leads to disaster.

Romeo and Juliet is a classic tragedy of forbidden love between the quixotic dreamer Romeo and the beautiful

When her lover is put on trial to choose between the two doors, one holding a lady and one holding a tiger, the princess is the one who tells him which door to choose, leaving him at the mercy of her decision. The author writes, “She had lost him, but who should have him?” (Stockton, 3). The princess chooses whether he lives and marries another woman or dies by a hungry tiger. Either way, the princess will be the loser because her previously surreptitious affair with the youth ends no matter what, and she has conflicting thoughts about which door to tell her lover to pick. The author writes, “Would it not be better for him to die at once, and go to wait for her in the blessed regions of semi-barbaric futurity?” (Stockton, 3). The princess, being a jealous princess, would likely decide to have for her lover to open the door containing the hungry tiger. Then, he would die right away and wait for her in the afterlife. The princess would probably rather have her lover die than marry another woman, because she would be unable to bear her lover marrying and loving a different woman. However, no matter which option the princess chooses, she will reap the consequences of her foolish decision to secretly love the youth. This young love is fated to end in

Young Catherine Marsh, emotional and lacking sagacity, proclaims that she loves Jack, who is twice her age. Her fictional evidence is used to incriminate him and destroy his innocence before court and everyone in his life, and her youthful passion and foolishness in what she thought was love ruined Jack’s life irrevocably. The author writes, “He was no longer seeing a pretty young girl but a poisonous snake that might strike when he least expected” (Picoult, 108). This is the beginning of the end for Jack, the catalyst for his downfall. Catherine’s love is young and foolish, and while she doesn’t mean to cause Jack to lose his job, reputation, and friends, she does. The author writes, “Raw love...could blindside you. It could make you forget what you did not know to focus exclusively on those few pieces you could commit to heart” (Picoult, 93). Catherine acts impulsively on her love for Jack without thinking about the possibility that Jack could be hurt by her actions and only focuses on the ephemeral happiness she feels with Jack. In the end, her young love causes Jack to be imprisoned, and her fantasy crashes