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Dishonesty in Romeo and Juliet
Deception in Shakespeare
Literary analysis of Romeo and Juliet
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Everyone at some point in their lives lies even when they know that they should be telling the truth. Deception is a key element in William Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet are both deceptive to their parents when they do not tell them about their marriage. They then continue to lie, Juliet telling her parents she would marry Paris when she secretly arranged to fake her death and Romeo deceiving Friar Laurence by going back to Verona. All of the deceiving in the play leads to conflicts, which eventually ends in death of both Romeo and Juliet. By showing how Romeo and Juliet being deceptive to their parents and role models led to pain and conflict, Shakespeare shows that you should always be honest if you want to maintain …show more content…
After making the plan to fake her death with Friar Laurence, Juliet tells her father, “Pardon, I beseech you! / Henceforward I am ever rul’d by you” (4.2.22-23). Here, Juliet is lying to her father by telling him she will marry Paris when she really plans to fake her death. This is important because it reveals that Juliet’s eagerness to be with Romeo causes her to lie to her parents, putting the person she just met above the parents that raised her and love her very much. Not caring about how her actions will affect them may also cause conflicts later on in the play. Romeo is also deceptive to his role model, Friar Laurence. After learning that Juliet has “died”, Romeo tells Balthasar, “Is it e’en so? Then I defy you, stars! / Thou knowest my lodging. Get me ink and paper / And hire posthorses. I will hence to-night” (5.1.24-26). Here, Romeo is being deceptive of Friar Laurence by not staying at Mantua like Friar Laurence told him to. This is important since Romeo is still banished, so going back to Verona may cause even more conflicts later in the …show more content…
By illustrating the negative effects of deception in relationships in the play Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare shows how important honesty is in
Dishonesty can lead to many tragedies in life. Juliet thinks everything is going as planned. She drinks the potion, she “dies”, and everyone thinks she’s dead, so they bury her. The only thing left is for her to wake up from the potion and be with her lover Romeo. Things change and don’t go how they were planned.
An act of dishonesty carried out by haste can result in very unlikely consequences to an individual’s life. Firstly, the dishonesty of Friar Lawrence in choosing to marry Romeo and Juliet without the knowledge or permission of their parents, results in undesirable after effects. Secondly, the sudden cessation of support from Juliet’s Nurse, to continue the relationship of Romeo and Juliet causes harm to Juliet’s feelings as a young lover and contributes to their fatality. Finally, Romeo’s haste to marry Juliet to prove his intentions, accounts for a future filled with even more hasty decisions. In Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, the dishonesty of Friar Lawrence and Nurse and the haste of Romeo and Juliet, results in the deaths of the young lovers.
“Don’t waste your love on someone who doesn’t value it.” In the play Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare exposes the life of two young lovers in the Renaissance period fighting for something they cannot live without; each other. Although fate takes its toll, the everlasting feud between two families, conditional love by parents, and the irresponsibility’s of father and mother like figure are the main causes in the death of Romeo and Juliet. The idea of love is something that is valued in this play from many different aspects of characters, lines, and scenes. Shakespeare leaves the minds of readers soaring over not why it happened, but who was at fault.
Because of secrets being kept, hearts were broken and people died. Paris was killed because Romeo could not tell him the real reason he was in the tomb (5.3), showing that keeping a secret may not have good results. Moreover, Romeo’s hesitance to confess his plan to Paris highlights the main theme throughout the play by showcasing the extreme consequences of such actions. Likewise, the Nurse’s inclination to keep her beloved Juliet’s secret supports the idea that there are tragic outcomes of secrecy. While speaking with Juliet, she says, “I think it best you married with the county,” (3.5). The disagreement causes Juliet losing her trust in the Nurse. The indicated exemplifies how an action such as keeping a secret can have a negative consequence.
Thus, he leaves Juliet alone in a vault filled with dead ancestors, as well as recently dead Romeo and Paris, and she kills herself. This is not to say that Friar Laurence does not feel responsible for Romeo and Juliet's deaths, he recounts his tale to the Prince and offers his life as a sacrifice if their deaths are his fault (5.3.228-68). In every step of deceiving Romeo and Juliet's parents, the government, and everyone who thought Juliet to be dead, Friar Laurence was attempting to: end a great feud between two families, help Juliet keep her marriage vows (by helping her out of marrying Paris), keeping Juliet alive, keeping Romeo safe from imprisonment or death, and ultimately, protecting the lovers' love from outside influences. He sees his acts as acts that are working for the greater good, and therefore they are just.
When Juliet hears after marrying Romeo that she must be married to Paris, a count, in two days, she rushes to Friar Laurence’s cell to speak of her sorrow. When Friar Laurence hears of how Juliet wishes to die if he cannot fix the problem, Friar Laurence says that he can help her if she has “the strength of will to slay [her]self” (4.1.73). This shows that Friar Laurence is again not worried about Juliet herself and her safety, but about what he can do to reconcile her family and Romeo’s. He offers this proposition when he already knows Juliet is willing to die and vulnerable. Lastly, his resulting plan is what sets the play’s tragedy in motion. Though Friar Laurence had many opportunities to back away from his involvement, keeping Juliet and Romeo safe, he does not. This shows that his interference – and the way he goes about it – are responsible for Romeo and Juliet’s
Romeo’s problems arose when he got banished for avenging Mercuito by murdering Tybalt. His decision to murder Tybalt was not entirely thought through. In fact, after Romeo kills the Capulet, he exclaims that he is ‘fortune’s fool’ (73) line 132. Additionally, his banishment certainly contributed to his death because it kept him away from Verona and Juliet. If he hadn’t gotten banished, he would have been aware of the plan the Friar and Juliet had created. Unfortunately, Romeo wasn’t informed of the plan, and after he heard about Juliet’s death, he sincerely believed she died. Balthasar, who told Romeo of Juliet’s ‘death’, didn’t want to leave Romeo unaccompanied because he believed that he looked ‘…pale and wild and do import Some misadventure…’(116) lines 28-29. Balthasar’s suspicions were valid because Romeo decided to take his life. He did not stop to ask how she died, or what Friar Laurence has to say about her death. Romeo decided, in the spur of the moment, that his only solution to deal with Juliet’s death was to kill himself. Romeo’s impulsiveness caused his preventable death, but he is not the only one who was impulsive and hasty in the
William Shakespeare attained literary immortality through his exposition of the many qualities of human nature in his works. One such work, The Merchant of Venice, revolves around the very human trait of deception. Fakes and frauds have been persistent throughout history, even to this day. Evidence of deception is all around us, whether it is in the products we purchase or the sales clerks' false smile as one debates the purchase of the illusory merchandise. We are engulfed by phonies, pretenders, and cheaters. Although most often associated with a heart of malice, imposture varies in its motives as much as it's practitioners, demonstrated in The Merchant of Venice by the obdurate characters of Shylock and Portia.
Young love is a very deep immature feeling, which tends to misguide those affected by it, and the affected ones fall too deeply in love, which leads to a tendency of self-destruction. The concept of the young misguiding love is emphasized in the drama, Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet are young when they first see each other and make the mistake of loving each other without knowing their family names. Their deep love without any understanding of the concept of love leads to the young lovers committing suicide, which is a rash decision. They do not embrace their situation, and think about other solutions other than suicide. Romeo and Juliet act on impulse and make rash decisions without thinking about the consequences, which results in self-destruction, because of the burden and the extremity of love.
Romeo and Juliet is a play written by William Shakespeare, where a boy and a girl fall in love with each other during a party hosted by Juliet’s father, Lord Capulet. The two teenager decide to get marry, despite their family's hate for each other and only meeting each other a few hours ago. However, the Montagues (Romeo’s Parents) and the Capulets end their feud after they discover that their children killed themselves. Romeo and Juliet’s death was caused by Juliet’s parents, Juliet, and Friar Lawrence.
Everyone has lied at one point or another in their life. Whether it is a small white lie about an outfit’s mishaps or something that ruined a relationship, lying or hiding the truth is a universal theme that everyone could relate to. In Hamlet, William Shakespeare uses the theme of deception to develop characters and cause their ultimate downfall in the play. Deception is not only woven in the plot but also portrays through the characters’ action and personality, such as Claudius, Polonius, and Hamlet.
A final way that the secrecy of the marriage affected the play was the plot. An example of this is that the feud could have been stopped if more people knew about the marriage. For example the parents didn't know but if they did they could have stopped the feud. They knew that if someone dies that they will be banish and they are far more responsible. This affects the plot because if more people knew about the marriage they might have tried and accepted each other's families. Another way that the marriage affected the plot was that Romeo and Juliet would have never had to try and escape if everyone knew about the marriage. This would affect the plot of the story because if they never tried to escape Verona together they wouldn't of have to
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is a play commonly viewed and known as a true love story; however, after analyzing several hints portrayed by the protagonists, it is evident that Shakespeare did not intend to make Romeo and Juliet seem like a true love story but a criticism of how superficial society’s view on love is.
In the streets of Verona, the feuds between the Capulets and Montagues have yet once again compromised the peace of the city. What began as a minor provocative gesture soon transformed into a violent altercation and fight that involved the young and old from the whole town resulting in many injured as the lay on the street.
In order to capture the recurring theme of falsehood, William Shakespeare uses the death of King Hamlet to force a trickery of security and responsibility on the major characters in his play, Hamlet. The audience rapidly discovers that masks don’t just hide physical appearances and actors aren’t just simply for theatre, they exist all around us. Everyone has the ability to create multiple identities in order to achieve a darker goal but whether or they access this ability is based on the integrity of that person. Shakespeare wanted to make a bold statement of fake personalities through his play Hamlet. False personalities will eventually fall under the force of the truth. They will eventually have to demonstrate their true character. Just like a crumpling building, they dishonesty will lead to their demise.