The Consequences of Reckless Decisions in Romeo and Juliet by Willam Shakespeare

1412 Words3 Pages

Actions are caused by ones personal choices, thus actions indeed speak louder than words. In today's society, people make a variety of decisions throughout their everyday lives. These decisions often lead to different outcomes and sometimes, they may cause a person to suffer consequences from his/her choices. Some people believe that everything happens for a reason; that everything happens because of fate. Others beg to differ as they consider that their decisions drive what fate has for them in the future and so they think that they are in control of their own destiny. In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, two star-crossed lovers betrayed their own family in order to be with each other. Given that both Romeo and Juliet are both young, they made endless sacrifices and decisions just for them to be together without considering the consequences. All of their sacrifices resulted in vain as their tragic conclusion was their own death. Although fate played a significant role in the star-crossed lovers' downfall, Romeo and Juliet paid the consequences of their dreadful decisions due to their reckless rebellion which eventually led to their catastrophic ending. In the first few events that happened in the play, the readers have already seen some poor choices Romeo and Juliet made that eventually led to their death. After Romeo learned that Juliet is a Capulet, an enemy of his family, he still chose to go back to the Capulet's house after the party hoping to see a glimpse of her as he asked himself "Can I go forward when my heart is [in the Capulet's]?" (II.i.1-2). Romeo's words reveal that he found the love of his life. He says that he cannot leave because of Juliet. He has to go back to the Capulet's orchard in order to find his h... ... middle of paper ... ...ir love lacked wisdom and so it brought them doom - it brought them tragedy. Their union created devastating endings, thus creating the whole point of Shakespeare's play. The star-crossed lovers made choices that altered what fate has in store for them. They took over their own destiny as they made their decisions together which caused them to go to a path of consequences that brought suffering. In reality, every action leads to another. Everything is all connected and everything ends up in one final outcome. Unless the world stops spinning, everything in an individual's life will consist of decisions made on a daily basis. In the end, life is indeed short and so if a person want to make the best out of it, risks and decisions has to be made no matter what the result is for life can vanish in a blink of an eye just like the tragic death of Juliet and her dear Romeo.

Open Document