Aristotle proposed what is believed to be the first definition of a true tragedy. Specifically, he states that a tragedy triggers great pity and fear caused by the main characters’ actions alone. Likewise, a true tragedy lacks coincidence and fate plays little in the overall play. William Shakespeare writes the play of The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet in which the audience knows the destiny of these two tragic heroes from the very beginning. Although this play is tragic knowing that the lives of two lovers are lost, it is not a tragedy as Romeo and Juliet are not solely responsible for their own deaths. Destiny is determined through the hands of greater forces than that of Romeo and Juliet, making this play merely tragic and not a true tragedy. Therefore, the play of Romeo and Juliet is not a tragedy as coincidental events, the role of fate, and Romeo and Juliet’s numerous tragic flaws are what ultimately cause the outcome of this play.
Pure misfortune and outside pressure contribute to the chance events that create a path for Romeo and Juliet’s destiny. According to Aristotle, a true tragedy lacks coincidence as everything happens for a reason. However, the reason that Romeo and Juliet meet was because of adversity. To illustrate, when the servant needs help reading the invitations to the Capulet party, he chooses Romeo as the person to read them. Out of all the people who are in city, the servant chooses Romeo. Because Romeo read the letter, he was able to come to the party. Nevertheless, there are over a hundred different girls at the party. Considering this number, the percentage that Romeo falls in love with Juliet, his family’s enemy, is very minimal. Additionally, bad luck was the main reason that the letter explaining Ju...
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...h it is tragic that Romeo and Juliet both die in the end, this play is not a tragedy as they alone did not determine their destiny. Certainly, tragic heroes have their lives ended for different reasons, but according to Aristotle, only true tragedies have tragic heroes that bring about death through their own mistakes.
Works Cited
Moulton, G. Richard. “Innocence of Pathos: The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet.” Drama
for Student. Vol. 21. Ed. Anne Marie Hacht. Detroit: Gale, 2005. 271-273.
Thrasher, Thomas. Understanding Romeo and Juliet. San Diego: Lucent Books, 2001.
Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. New York: Washington Square
Press, 1992.
Waters, D. Douglas. “D. Douglas Waters on Catharsis in Romeo and Juliet.” Bloom's
Notes: William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Ed. Harold Bloom. Broomall:
Chelsea House, 1996. 68-70.
There are many forces in the tragic play of Romeo and Juliet that are keeping the two young, passionate lovers apart, all emanating from one main reason. In this essay I will discuss these as well as how love, in the end, may have been the cause that led to the tragic deaths of Romeo and Juliet. Their strong attraction to each other, which some call fate, determines where their forbidden love will take them.
In William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Yukio Mishima’s The Sound of Waves, the secondary characters play an essential role in the book. In Romeo and Juliet by an English playwright and poet William Shakespeare, Friar Lawrence is an important secondary character who designs solutions for Romeo and Juliet and brings the play into the dramatic results. The failure of his plan causes the tragedy of death for both main characters at the end of the story. In The Sound of Waves, Shinji Kubo, a young and poor fisherman in Uta-Jima falls in love with Hatuse, a rich man’s daughter. Shinji and Hatsue try to be together throughout the book, but encounter many difficulties with their neighbors. Shinji’s mother tries to help Shinji and Hatsue by asking many people and going to shrines to beg the gods for help to get them together.
A character goes through many changes that depend on the kind of events they experience. The play “Romeo and Juliet” written by William Shakespeare, uses different tones and language that shows the readers that Juliet, a Protagonist, changes over time, proving the idea that she is a dynamic character. At the beginning of the play, we are introduced to a young, innocent and inexperienced girl, Juliet the daughter of Lord Capulet . She has not yet seen the real world and is raised by the person she trusts most, her nurse. Juliet begins as a naive child who has thought little about love and marriage, but she grows up quickly upon falling in love with Romeo, the son of her family’s great enemy. Due to the fact that Juliet is a girl in an aristocratic family, she has none of the freedom Romeo has to rome around the city, climb over walls in the middle of the night, or get into swordfights. As we begin to learn more about the character of Juliet, we learn that Juliet is not the girl she used to be anymore. She is more courageous and willing to break the rules. She goes against her and her family beliefs. In the beginning of the play she obeys her parents. But as the play descends Juliet is disregarding of what her parents say. She is no longer the innocent girl she use to be. Shakespeare use of language helps the reader to see the change in a character that makes them a dynamic character.
Romeo & Juliet Romeo and Juliet was a tragedy, but it did not have to be. Many things could have been done to prevent their deaths. Many characters contributed to their deaths. The sole character that was responsible for their deaths is Friar Lawrence. Friar Lawrence is responsible for the deaths of the lovers because he was secretive with their relationship, he was unable communicate effectively, and he had a cowardly persona.
Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”¬¬ is considered to be one of the most tragic stories ever told and the most asked question is ‘What, exactly, caused their deaths?’ That question has been answered from a respected, educated literature critic to the adolescent mind of an annoyed teenager. The sources that shall be used are from professional critics, but the opinion shall lean toward more of an annoyed teen. While not exactly annoyed, more exasperated, one could say. Romeo and Juliet commit suicide because of their young age. Romeo’s impulsiveness and desperation to love mixed with Juliet’s innocence and easily influenced personality prove to be a deadly pair. Romeo and Juliet’s lack of experience for love because of their age ultimately led to their death.
To conclude, Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy due to the tragic elements of Romeo’s thoughtlessness, Juliet’s attachment towards Romeo, and the plot’s dramatic turnabout. The play has both main characters tragically take their own lives, but there is much controversy whether it should be considered a tragedy or just a tragic story. Aristotle’s Poetics clearly outline all of the necessary parts to a tragedy, and Romeo and Juliet fill in those requisites. Despite all controversies, the one agreement everybody can come to is Romeo and Juliet is one of the world’s most beloved work of literature.
The proverb goes that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” In the classic play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, this proverb reflects Friar Lawrence’s preeminent role in the tragedy of the two teenage lovers, each belonging to feuding families in Verona. Though Friar Lawrence’s motives are filled with good intentions, he does not always use the moral approach to reach them. In his play, Friar Lawrence is the most responsible character for Romeo and Juliet’s deaths because he is not only political, but also irresponsible and deceptive.
“Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health, still-waking sleep, that is not what this is” (Shakespeare 1.1. 179-180). A string of contradictions explain the love story of Romeo and Juliet, a contradiction. Some critics consider this story a tragedy because Shakespeare once wrote; “the fault is not in our stars but in ourselves”. While others say it does not follow the standard Aristotelian form of tragedy (Krims 1). Romeo and Juliet can not be a tragedy because no flaw causes them to fall, the lovers, could not have controlled fate, and family and friends assisted them to their deaths.
Due to Romeo's strong, bold actions resulting from his undying love for Juliet created a passionate love story with intense connections between the two characters. Despite the differences in the characters actions, both stories end up being tragedies. In literature, a tragedy occurs when multiple sets of misfortunate events eventually blows up into one horrible one.
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare is often referred to as a classic love story. It is a story of love at first sight and fighting between families. The classic is a true tragedy because of the way it is created. Romeo and Juliet is an Aristotelian tragedy because it clearly follows the model shown by Aristotle. All aspects of the plot and characters perfectly follow way Aristotle defined. The plot follows the events that need to occur and the main characters have a flaw. Pity and fear is felt for the characters throughout the play. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare is a true Aristotelian tragedy because of the characters, plot, and the fact that it triggers pity and fear.
Most readers are aware of the many famous deaths or acts of death within the Shakespearean plays. And when the main characters die in Shakespeare’s plays, indeed, the readers would categorize the play as a tragedy. The problem with any tragedy definition is that most tragic plays do not define the tragedy conditions explained or outlined by Aristotle. According to Telford (1961), a tragedy is a literary work that describes the downfall of an honorable, main character who is involved on historically or socially significant events. The main character, or tragic hero, has a tragic fault, the quality that leads to his or her own destruction. In reading Aristotle’s point of view, a tragedy play is when the main character(s) are under enormous pressure and are incapable to see the dignities in human life, which Aristotle’s ideas of tragedy is based on Oedipus the King. Shakespeare had a different view of tragedy. In fact, Shakespeare believed tragedy is when the hero is simply and solely destroyed. Golden (1984) argued the structure of Shakespearean tragedy would be that individual characters revolved around some pain and misery.
An Aristotelian tragedy includes many different characteristics. It is a cause-and-effect chain and it contains the elements of catharsis, which is pity and fear, and hamartia, which is the tragic flaw embedded in the main characters. The famous play Romeo and Juliet, written by William Shakespeare, is about two lovers of two different families who hate each other and the misdemeanors they have to surpass. Many debate on whether it is an Aristotelian tragedy or simply tragic. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet should be regarded as an Aristotelian tragedy because catharsis is exhibited in the play, Juliet’s blindness of love is shown, and Romeo’s impetuousness is the tragic flaw that leads to his demise.
Some say fate will bring you together, but it also may play a hand in your own death. In the story The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet is a drama made by William Shakespeare, In Verona. This is where 2 lovestruck teens meet and fall in love despite a long-standing family feud preventing their marriage, but their story suddenly ends with both of them dying together. Romeo and Juliet are the ones who are ultimately responsible for their own deaths in the drama The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Some might claim that Friar Lawrence was at fault for Romeo and Juliet's deaths.
The play Romeo and Juliet written by William Shakespeare tells the story of two very young lovers who die. It just appears that fate controlled the outcome of the story. But if you really study and interpret the story you will realize it is a series of a few simple coincidences, which made the outcome so tragic.
Every tragic play must have a tragic hero. A tragic hero does not need to be good; for example, Macbeth was a wicked person, even though he was a tragic hero. This tragic hero, Aristotle tell us, should not be absolutely evil, since the death of such a figure, being only just, would fall to move the audience; not should the figure be absolutely good, for his death would violate our concept of right and wrong, evoking not a tragic sense but a feeling of courage" (Fallon, Shakespeare 7). According to Aristotle, "The tragic hero must be an important person in the community, a king, a queen, a prince, of a famous warrior, a man or woman of substance and responsibility because that figures experiences a fall, and any fall is more moving if it comes from a great height" (6). Also a tragic hero does not have to die, but in all Shakespeare's plays the hero dies, while in other tragic plays they may alive.