On the surface, Romeo & Juliet is a simple tragic love story: boy meets girl, they fall in love, time elapses, things go wrong, and an end is met. But if you ask why was the end met, well there's where you get into the details of the story and the individual aspects of the mostly nondescript characters, in particular Romeo himself. Look into his ridiculously romantic lines, and you'll notice either the flaw in his character, the mistake he made, or the way fate plays with its toys.
From the text itself, you can glean all three ideas of how Romeo fell from atop his tower of happiness and love, but the prologue states crystal clear as crystal that:
Two households, both alike in dignity/
(In fair Verona, where we lay our scene),/
From ancient grudge breaks new mutiny,/
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean./
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes/
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;/
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows/
Doth with their death bury their parents' strife./
The fearful passage of their death-marked love/
And the continuance of their parents' rage,/
Which, but their children's end, naught could remove,/
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;/
The which, if you with patient ears attend,/
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.(Prologue)
It says in plain English that the children of the fighting foes will die to end the malice between the families. It also says that nothing else could have possibly brought the peace to the Montagues and the Capulets. Shakespeare makes it painfully obvious that fate is not looking down on the two kids with kindness. He blames nothing but fate for the death of the two young and delightfully naive lovers.
Despite Shakespeare's intentions, people ...
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...tually self-destructive.
Romeo is a classic tragic hero. He's either perfect and made a mistake, ideal except for one little problem that messes him up completely, or fate is a fickle mistress who just really doesn't like him. The play, the Zeffirelli version, and the Luhrman version all have different ideas about what exactly made him and Juliet die. The original text leans more toward the latter idea, while the Zeffirelli and Luhrman versions showed hamartia and tragic flaw respectively. In all actuality, to see what causes Romeo's downfall, it's all in how you interpret Shakespeare's words. Personal experiences and thought processes will lead to different ideas. Look at Zeffirelli and Luhrman; two directors using the same text as the inspiration, and they pulled away from it understanding it in entirely different ways.
Works Cited
Romeo and Juliet, Prolouge
Romeo and Juliet, written by William Shakespeare, is a story of two young lovers. These two hearts, Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet belong to feuding families. The family feud causes them to keep their love a secret and therefore only Romeo, Juliet, Benvolio, the Nurse and Friar Lawrence know of their love. Romeo and Juliet are able to look past the feud and let themselves fall in mad love with the other. They let themselves do almost anything for the other and at times it seems like too much to do, even for the one they love. Although fate and character traits play a key role in the play, ultimately Rome and Juliet’s personal choices lead to their downfall.Fate originates all of the conflicts in Romeo and Juliet, from when they met until they die.
Romeo- Love causes Romeo to act impulsively and put himself in dangerous situations. For example, in act two scene two, Romeo sneaks into the Capulet grounds due to his love for Juliet. He loves her so much that he was willing to risk being caught by Juliet’s kinsman. If he was caught, a fight could have broken out, which would put Romeo’s life in danger. Also, he would lose his life due to the prince’s penalty. However, due to his intrusion of the Capulet party in act one scene five, it is Tybalt’s rage that jeopardizes Romeo’s well-being. This shows the intensity of Romeo’s love for Juliet, and how he cares more about seeing her than his own safety. For example, in act five scene three, Romeo kills himself because he believes that Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is Shakespeare's first authentic tragedy. It is about two lovers who commit suicide when their feuding families prevent them from being together. The play has many characters, each with its own role in keeping the plot line. Some characters have very little to do with the plot; but some have the plot revolving around them. While the character of Friar Lawrence spends only a little time on stage, he is crucial to the development of the conclusion of the play.
Romeo and Juliet, the tale abhorred by all high school students. The archaic language, the sappy love story – it’s no wonder that a chorus of groans occur whenever the name Shakespeare is uttered. The main characters in Romeo in Juliet are unsurprisingly Romeo and Juliet – the star-crossed lovers. Romeo and Juliet are lovers whose families are engaged in a feud for many tears. Despite this, their love flourishes. However, the pay still concludes in a tragedy, because of the character’s flaws. In Romeo and Juliet, Romeo’s desperation and impulsiveness, Juliet’s maturity and rebellion, and Tybalt’s cockiness and aggression.
The best explanation, however, is that Shakespeare does not rely entirely on fate. Romeo holds responsibility for his actions in regards to committing suicide, whether or not he was destined to die from the beginning. This ending is avoidable in many ways. First of all, if the Friar had thought through his plan a little more he would have realized that there are some flaws that could result in serious consequences, as happened. Also, Romeo could have tried to live his life without his lover and then soon realized that she was alive, though this would be very hard to do.
The leading force, in my opinion, that led to Romeo and Juliet's death is the conflict between the two fathers, Capulet and Montague. It's because of this conflict that Romeo and Juliet feel they must hide their love which, in the end, is the cause of their deaths.
How far would you go to be with the love of your life? Would you kill someone, or run away from the love of your life? Romeo did exactly that, he holds all qualities of tragic hero.romeo us fear, too early: for my mind misgives Some consequence yet hanging in the stars Shall bitterly begin his fearful date With this night's revels and expire the term Of a despised life closed in my breast By some vile forfeit of untimely death.(Shakespeare)this quote shows that romeo is the tragic hero because of his traits of loving easily and believing in fate,and he is very impulsive. Romeo was so drunk on love he didn't think about anything else and did stupid things which caused him much pain. Also, he got over his first love Rosaline very quickly when meeting Juliet which also set up his death because they were never meant to be. Juliet foreshadows his death by saying "an ill-diving soul,"(act 3 scene 5 shakespeare) she means that she feels something bad is going to happen to romeo. This foreshadows how she will see romeo for the last time.this is evidence to show how shakespeare uses tragic flaws to show that romeo is a true tragic hero who is responsible for his own demise.
In essence, most of the tragic things that happened in the play were because Romeo didn’t sit down and think calmly and thoroughly what consequences would his actions lead to. This impulsive behaviour led him to problematic and poorly made decisions, which conclude to this tragic ending
Romeo and Juliet is a tragic story about a pair of star-crossed lovers whose demises were unexpected to most. However, their deaths were a result of their impulsiveness. It caused their problematic marriage, Romeo’s preventable death, as well as Juliet’s preventable death.
I prefer to think of Romeo and Juliet as a love story with a tragic ending rather than a classic tragedy, because the love Romeo and Juliet find and share is beautiful and inspiring: there is nothing tragic about it.
...t on the spot, and are too immature. Romeo and Juliet’s spring of blind love quickly deepens and causes them to face situation that they have never faced before. They do not know how to handle their bizarre complications, as the story takes a quick, unpredicted turn and turns into a nightmare for them. Romeo and Juliet are forced to make rash decisions one after the other and do not consider the possible solutions other than suicide, causing them to look up to suicide as their only hope. Their bizarre complications are caused by their blind, immature, and excessive love and their act of taking their own lives is also caused by immaturity, idolatry for each other, and the shortness of time. Romeo and Juliet suicide at the end of the story, due to the shortness of time and the extremity of their love; they believe that they have no other options, other than suicide.
Romeo and Juliet is a timeless tale of lovers who's misfortune and immaturity was a cause of their own destruction. The characters individually show immaturity and together demonstrate how ignorance of the world effects more than just their own lives. Romeo and Juliet, as expressed in the succeeding examples, fall in love quickly as a result of their naivety.
Despite what many people think, Romeo and Juliet is not a love story; rather a story of desperation and obsession. People have been reading Shakespeare for hundreds of years and several people have mistaken it for a love story, due to the fact that Romeo loves Juliet so much he is willing to kill himself when he finds her supposedly dead; she does the same when she wakes up to find him dead. But in fact, Romeo is more taken aback by her beauty than he is in love with her. Juliet is intrigued by the fact someone could love her because her parents are very unsupportive of her. When the two find each other, they immediately become obsessed, mistaking this for love at first sight.
Romeo and Juliet is a romantic love story about a young lad named Romeo who has fallen in love with Lady Juliet, but is unable to marry her because of a long-lasting family feud. The play ends in the death of both these characters and the reunion of the friendship between the families. Romeo is in love with Juliet, and this is a true, passionate love (unlike the love Paris has for her or the love Romeo had for Rosaline) that nothing can overcome, not even the hatred between their two families that is the reason for the death of their two children. Throughout the play, Shakespeare thoroughly explores the themes of both true love and false love and hatred. Without either of these themes, the play would loose its romantic touch and probably would not be as famous as it is today.
The first point of tragedy is right in the prologue to act 1 where it states that Romeo and Juliet are already doomed, it is a catastrophe of unawareness “From forth the fatal loins of these two foes/A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life,” (prologue act 1.5-6). Before the story even begins, before the characters are even established its already stated that two “star-crossed lovers take their life,”. Star crossed lovers are two people who love each other are doomed, the stars which are believed to tell one’s fate are crossed so they do not align therefore are not ment to be lovers. This is a catastrophe of unawareness because neither Romeo or Juliet know that they are star crossed, they think they can be together peacefully. Due to their unawareness they still believe it will all work out because they are in love “And what love can do, that dares love attempt./Therefore, thy kinsmen are no stop to me.” (Romeo. II.2.68-69) Here Romeo is saying that he is in love and a man in love can do anything, therefore his enemies or ...