Romeo And Juliet Character Flaws Essay

Character flaws can lead to great things or many worse problems. There is a lot of debate about whether having bad character flaws is a good or bad thing. Sometimes it can be a good thing but it’s usually a bad thing. In Romeos case, it’s a very bad thing as it leads to his downfall. These character flaws that Romeo has affect him mentally and even physically. An example of a person’s character flaws leading to his/her downfall is Romeo in the play Romeo & Juliet, written by William Shakespeare. Overall, Romeo makes many decisions and does a lot of irrational things throughout this play. In the play Romeo makes poor decision like believing things that aren’t true and he jumps into things too quickly.
He makes a good amount of mistakes throughout the play. He disputes and argues a good amount. One of these arguments even got

himself into a fight. Romeo argues with another character Tybalt. Tybalt says, “Thou, wretched boy, that didst consort him here, / Shalt with him hence.” Romeo then says, “This shall determine that. / [They fight, TYBALT falls” (3-1-46). Within the argument between Romeo and Tybalt, Tybalt kills a character called Mercutio. Romeo is furious about this, resulting in him murdering Tybalt. This was a big mistake for Romeo as he gets into some trouble. He ends up getting banished from the streets of Verona. This is not a good thing as Romeo and Juliet had just gotten married. This causes many problems to occur later throughout the play. Romeo can get very angry easily which is why he makes many bad mistakes. Romeos big mouth and his anger leads to him believing false things that he visions or even hears.
Although Romeo makes some very big mistakes, he also believes things said to him that isn’t true. “I dreamt a dream to-night… / In bed asleep, while they do dream things true” (1-4-16). Romeo has many dreams which he gets majorly deceived by. He has many dreams about his “love” Rosaline. He dreams of being with her forever and that she is the one for him when she really isn’t. Some may say he is living a nightmare when another character in the play tells him something very important. Balthasar says, “Her body sleeps in Capel’s monument,” and Romeo responds saying, “Is it e’en so? Then I defy you, stars!” (5-1-80-81). Romeo is being told that his love, Juliet; is dead. She is not really dead as she’s taken a potion to go into a temporary coma but he is misinformed with wrong information. Many things are said and done to him, but it all comes down to how he handles it all.
In contrary to Romeo being told false things, he responds in very unreasonable ways.

Romeo is the kind of guy who doesn’t take a lot of time to think about things. He loves to jump to action quickly. This is a bad character trait to have as it can easily lead to many negative things. In fact, this is one of the character flaws that lead to Romeos downfall. After being misinformed about Juliet’s “death”, he plans to kill himself right away. He takes no time to think of another solution. “Come, Cardial and not poison, go with me / To Juliet’s grave; for there must I use thee” (5-1-82). Romeo buys a deadly poison with the idea to go to Juliet’s grave to kill himself. He is in distress and he obviously does not know the right thing to do. As if there’s no other way, Romeo travels to Juliet’s grave. He then proceeds to do what he wishes to do, to kill himself. After he kills himself, Juliet wakes up to see Romeo’s corpse. She kills herself shortly after seeing Romeo dead. Romeo could be living a life alive with Juliet if he didn’t conclude things so quickly. Consequently, Romeo has to endure the “death” of Juliet and the actual death of

himself.
Nonetheless, Romeo’s character flaws add up to his own destruction. Although he is serious, he does things that are huge mistakes. These things affect himself and others throughout the play. Along with making mistakes, he also takes in false information given to him by other characters. This is partially why he makes multiple mistakes throughout this play. Sometimes these mistakes were the cause of other people misinforming him, but it was his fault as well. Simultaneously, Romeo jumps into things and concludes things very quickly. Romeo jumps into love with Juliet as fast as he does killing himself for Juliet. He doesn’t think about things, he just does what he thinks is right. Given Romeo as an example of these character flaws, people should be wise and think before doing something that could result in destruction.