Emotion In Romeo And Juliet

Love, what a small word for being one of the most powerful and complicated emotion someone can receive. Love grants people an experience of other emotions such as, sadness, happiness, jealousy, hatred and many more. It is because of those characteristics that love creates that make it so difficult to define the emotion in a few words. In the play, “Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare, two star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet, defy their parents in hopes of being able to be together and live a happy life. The characters in “Romeo and Juliet” show the characteristics of love through their words and actions throughout the play. The attributes the characters illustrate throughout the play are rage, loyalty, and sorrow.
To begin with, the

characters’ rage is motivated by their act for love. For example, in the relationship between Romeo and Mercutio, Romeo feels a sense of rage when Mercutio is slain. In the text, it states, “I do protest I never injur’d thee,/But love thee better than thou canst devise...And so good Capulet, which name I tender/As dearly as mine own, be satisfied...Alive in triumph, and Mercutio slain...Now, Tybalt, take the ‘villain’ back again...Either thou or I, or both must go with him” (56-58). After Mercutio had been killed by Tybalt, Romeo is engulfed in rage and only had vengeance on his mind. However, just before Romeo had sought to kill Tybalt, Romeo was asking for peace from Tybalt, yet, after Tybalt had slain Mercutio, Romeo immediately dropped his pretense and forgot about his goal of seeking for peace because of how Tybalt killed Romeo’s best friend in front of him. In addition, Mercutio portrays the emotion of rage when he sees Romeo being beaten by Tybalt. In Act III Scene I, as Tybalt is harassing Romeo, Mercutio interrupts by saying “O calm, dishonourable, vile submission/Alla stoccata carries it away. Tybalt, you ratcatcher, will you walk,” and begins to prepare to defend Romeo (57). Mercutio intervenes Tybalt’s beating on Romeo when he cannot bear seeing his vulnerable friend being beaten. Mercutio’s rage causes him to act irrationally by attempting to duel Tybalt with the thought that Tybalt is way more more superior fighter than Mercutio in his mind. However, Mercutio still goes with his attempt to protect Romeo and essentially, dies for Romeo in the end. Overall, rage is represented by the characters because of their motives for love.
To add on, the characters demonstrate their loyalty for the ones that they love.

When Juliet discovers Romeo’s banishment for his sinful act of murdering her own blood-related cousin, Tybalt, Juliet is more than fine with him doing it because of blindness in her love for Romeo. In the text, it states, “Shame come to Romeo! Blister’d be thy tongue...That ‘banished’ that one word ‘banished,’/Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt’s death/Was woe enough, if it had ended there...” (63-64). Juliet show her loyalty for Romeo by defending Romeo’s actions when Juliet’s nurse speaks illy of Romeo. Juliet is essentially justifying Romeo’s actions because of the relationship they have with one another and is more biased towards Romeo. She is more distracted about Romeo’s banishment rather than the death of her own blood-related cousin because of her loyalty towards Romeo. Also, Friar Laurence shows his loyalty to Romeo and Juliet by being an ally for them throughout their whole relationship. In Act IV Scene I, Friar Laurence tells Juliet his plan of how to get her and Romeo back together. He tells her to drink some sort of poison that will make her go to sleep and make her look dead (81). Friar Laurence shows his loyalty because even though things seem very horrible for Romeo and Juliet’s, he continues to assist them. He takes the risk of being caught in the crossfire of the families for assisting Romeo and Juliet to go behind their parents’ backs. Thus, the characters illustrate their loyalty for their loved ones

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Additionally, sorrow is involved with love because the characters are too captiv. Paris, Romeo, and Juliet experience their sorrow when they see their loved one dead and then, they, too, die afterwards. In the text, Romeo kills Paris and Romeo commits suicide. Juliet wakes up and sees that Romeo is dead, and she commits suicide as well (99-101). The quote illustrates the sorrow between those characters because they all see their loved one dead right next to them right before they die as. This sorrow was influenced by love because of how they had the mentality that they could not live without their loved one. In addition, the Capulet family and the Montague family face their sorrow as they see death all around them. In the text, it states, “Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet. Where be these enemies? Capulet, Montague,/See what a scourge is laid upon your hate...And I, for winking at you, discords too,/Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punish’d” (105). Lord Capulet and Lord Montague realize their feud between each other have caused their own family members to have died. Both parents feel extremely guilty because of how Romeo and Juliet had lost their lives due to their relationship having to be secretive. Thus, the characters experience sorrow as a result of their love for one another.
To conclude, the characters experience various kinds of characteristics of love throughout the whole play. The three main attributes of love that the characters are influenced by are rage, loyalty, and sorrow. Through the characteristics of love in “Romeo and Juliet,” it can be compared to love nowadays due to its message of how love is not always happy and wonderful.