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Character and characterization of the play Romeo and Juliet
Youth and innocence in romeo and juliet
Character and characterization of the play Romeo and Juliet
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Romeo Montague's plot-shaping irresponsible actions
One man's actions can make a huge difference. This is the case in The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. A teenage boy with no experience of true love or true pain, riding the rollercoaster of emotions that comes with teen love. Romeo Montague has a great effect on the outcome of William Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet as exemplified/demonstrated by his rash decisions and actions.
One example being Juliet. As Romeo is “recovering” from his rejection from Rosaline, it doesn’t take Romeo but a couple days to become obsessed over a girl of the Capulet house. Her name is unknown to Romeo but he is sure he has found true love. After less than five minutes of meeting, Romeo and Juliet are two love birds. “If I profane with my unworthiest hand. This holy shrine,
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the gentle fine is this: My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand. To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss” (Shakespeare). This scene shows Romeo’s irresponsibility more than any other scene in the play. This is where it all begins; Romeo’s immaturity leads to him making an irresponsible decision of declaring his love to a girl he met less than five minutes ago. The irresponsible scene between Romeo and Juliet will shape the play drastically. Furthermore, between Sunday evening and Monday morning Romeo and Juliet decide to make plans for their wedding day. It has not even been a full day’s thought when Juliet says, “O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name! Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I’ll no longer be a Capulet” (Shakespeare). For Romeo to listen to his teenage crush and to start planning marriage after knowing her for less than 24 hours is absurd.
Furthermore, Romeo’s decision to keep his relationship with Juliet private, was highly immoral. Marie Hartwell-Walker states in an article discussing the troubles of a relationship one's parents do not approve of, “Don’t keep your relationship a secret.Keeping it secret suggests you are ashamed of your choice. Someone will inevitably find out, which will make everyone else in the family angry and upset with you both”(Hartwell-Walker). Thankfully, as the reader later discovers in scene 5, the Capulet family, nor the Montague family are either upset at their children's decision. However, for Romeo to keep his relationship with Juliet undisclosed was irresponsible. “If they do see thee, they will murder thee”(Shakespeare). This is the moment when Romeo and Juliet believe in their head that they either need to keep their love behind closed doors or they will face harsh
consequences. Jumping ahead to Act 5, Balthasar brings news of Juliet’s “death”. The reader knows that Juliet has poisoned herself to avoid marrying Count Paris and to later run away with Romeo. In Romeo’s mind, this is the end of the world, her true love has died. The only thing on Romeo’s mind is suicide. Romeo follows through with his thought when saying, “Get me ink and paper and hire posthorses. I will hence tonight” (Shakespeare). Romeo’s irresponsible self does not wait for this all to sink in, or to meet with the Friar but yet to make a rash decision in a couple seconds to take his own life. Fiona Macdonald writes, “Heartbreak really does hurt. Functional MRI scans have shown that people who have recently been dumped have higher than normal activity in the region of the brain that registers physical pain. This triggers the release of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenalin, leading to all kinds of physical symptoms, such as nausea, difficulty breathing, and also weakening of the heart muscle that doctors call Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, and can sometimes be fatal” (Macdonald). Although Romeo’s actions should not be justified, this citation infers that these rash actions possibly could not be helped. It may be true that Romeo should have given himself time to deal with this situation, and then act accordingly. But, to decide minutes after hearing this bad new to kill yourself was extremely irresponsible and immature. Through Romeo’s rash decisions and actions the tragedy's result was greatly affected. From his rapid replacement of Rosaline to him poisoning himself, Romeo was responsible for a majority of thoughtless actions in this drama. Some may say that Romeo’s actions were justified as a result of his heart being “broken” twice throughout the duration of this play. However, Romeo did not have to act so quickly on what he has heard.
“Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare is a play about two lovers from different families that have an internal feud between them. It ends in both lovers, Romeo and Juliet, committing suicide as they could not openly live with each other. An important idea in this play is that of the impetuosity of youth and the rash decisions that young people may make. This idea is continuously brought up throughout the play and is explored through the concepts of overreacting and being blinded by anger, desperation in forbidden love and taking your life for love.
Both Romeo and Juliet speak of the role of fate and chance, it plays a
With Mercutio’s last moments he cursed the houses Capulet and Montague for his death and events that happen during the course of the play. Could this very well be a fair assumption, with the toxic behavior coming from the Capulets and the passive behavior from the Montagues, would it be any wonder that the adults of the story are the true cause for all the troubles that befall Romeo, Juliet and company?
“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.
Choices determine every outcome, A better way to put it is “What we do in life, echoes in eternity”, essentially every single decision one makes , no matter how minuscule, will always have an impact in one’s life. Fate isn’t real; Fate is a term commonly used by those that refuse to accept that they control their own future. Teenagers ever since the beginning of time were and still are expected to make poor choices due to their age. But once they learn to take responsibility for their actions they become adults. Both Romeo and Juliet make multiple decisions such as marrying, killing and suicide without stepping back and thinking about the consequences. In the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare all the choices made by the star crossed lovers have consequences. The two lovers blame fate for their misfortune. They refuse to believe that fate does not determine the end result, only they can do that.
Juliet is honest with herself. Although she is aware of how dangerous it is to be interested in Romeo, she wishes to ask him to “Deny thy father, and refuse thy name;/ Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my lover,/ And I’ll no longer be a Capulet” (II, ii,
Taking Responsibility for the Tragedy in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet 'Romeo and Juliet' is one of the most famous plays written by William Shakespeare, it is set in Verona, Italy. At the time it was common for parents to arrange their daughter's marriage it was very unusual for the daughter to argue or refuse the marriage. In the play a young couple unfortunately fell passionately in love with each other, the end result was tragic as it resulted in the death of Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet. They belonged to families who were bitter enemies.
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.
Romeo and Juliet choose their own actions through their judgments, which were caused by their belief of everlasting love. Due to their unsound and absurd attitudes, both characters are dazed by love in a puerile manner. The relationship they created was actually built on lust and desperation. Firstly, Romeo is the first character whom shows immature love in the story as a whole. Once Capulet’s party is over, Romeo’s attitude leads him to jump over the wall to Juliet’s house and exclaim to her,” And what love can do, that dares love attempt./Therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me”(2.2.68-9). The effect of love caused Romeo to not pay attention to the consequences of jumping over the wall and talking to the daughter of his enemy. The flaw is that he is beginning to think that his love is as hard as nails. It is illogical for Romeo to think this...
The two main forces driving Romeo and Juliet together while simultaneously pulling them apart are the Capulets and the Montagues. As is typical with all teenage romance, parents who don’t approve of their child’s love will do everything they possibly can to keep them apart (in Juliet’s case, it’s trying to marry her off to someone else). But while these efforts are noble on their parents’ part, teenagers have a natural tendency to go against what their parents say, especially when it comes to something that will make them happy or their “true love”. In the instance of Romeo and Juliet, whether this was true love or simply lust, the Capulets and Montagues were made to be the barrier between them, causing sad, lovelorn children. Acting as barrier between them also forces Romeo and Juliet to see each other in secret, and Romeo’s walk of shame after their “honeymoon” night was what got Romeo into the whole ordeal with Tybalt later on in the play.
When one looks closely at the story of Romeo and Juliet, one will see that it is a story with many ethical aspects. The first ethical concern was the two feuding families. How moral is it to hate someone only because they have a certain family name? This all come from a time period when people were fairly focused on religion, which teaches us not to hate. I also question this because I think it is ironic that both Romeo and Juliet seem to be fairly religious, since the first person Romeo went to for help was Friar Lawrence, and a few scenes in the play took place in or around the church. I think that this hatred is especially bad in the case of the Capulets and the Montagues, because I was always under the impression that the families had been feuding for so long that no one really knew why they hated each other anymore. This was the beginning of the problems for Romeo and Juliet. They had a moral decision to make. Should they stay true to their families, and deny their love, or should they stay true to their feelings and disgrace their families? In order to resolve this dilemma, Romeo turns to Friar Lawrence, who perhaps could be seen as the most moral character, to begin with. Because he was a holy man, he was the most logical confidant of anyone in the play. People see men of the cloth as reliable and a good source of advice. Of course, Friar Lawrence has every intention of helping the two lovers, also hoping that he could reunite the feuding families. However, unbeknownst to him, everything he will do throughout the play will have an unnerving consequence. No matter what he did to correct what he had done wrong, it only drug him deeper into trouble. Who ever would have thought that by marrying the two young lovers, he would have caused all of this heartache for the families, and really for all of Verona? No one ever considered the fact that two young people wanting to get married would have affected the entire city. Friar Lawrence was only trying to be a good friend and ally, but everything he did just ended up backfiring for him.
Because of miscommunication, Romeo and Juliet’s parents are not informed of their teenager’s conflicts, therefore making them useless. An example of miscommunication between the adults and adolescents is when Romeo locks himself in his room, depressed. Lord Montague is deeply concerned about Romeo’s secret ways, saying he is “to himself, so secret”. Lord and Lady Montague want to “learn from whence his sorrows grow” so they can help him with his troubles (I.i.155-163). Because Romeo alienates himself from his parents, not telling them he is heartbroken from Rosaline, his parents do not know why he is upset.
Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet’s love for each other causes them to sacrifice their family, although their families have always had great gravity over the lovers. After the party where the lovers first meet, Juliet stands on her balcony and promises herself to Romeo: “be but sworn my love, and I’ll no longer be a Capulet” [2.2.37-39]. In this case, “sworn my love” can be rearranged to mean “my sworn love,” which refers to Romeo as the one that she will always love. For Juliet to become a Montague-- her family’s rivals-- would mean that she would give up many things she and her family value. In their fight over her refusal to marry Paris, Juliet’s parents threaten to not “acknowledge [her]” as their daughter, even if “[she]...hang, beg, starve, die in the streets” [4.1.192-193]. “Hanging,” “begging,” “starving,” “dying” are all very extreme ramifications that Juliet’s parents will give to her if she does not
	Putting the objections and differences of Romeo and Juliet's parents aside, however, Romeo and Juliet fall in love as soon as they meet, and decide to risk being wed in secret. The reason for the secret marriage is because both Romeo and Juliet know their parents would be angered by their marriage. The only people to know about Romeo and Juliet's secret marriage other than themselves is the Friar and the nurse.
The first poor choice Romeo and Juliet made is falling in love and agreeing to getting married by Friar Laurence. At the beginning of the play, Romeo is sad that Rosaline, the girl he loves doesn’t love him back. Romeo attends the Capulet’s ball to see her. While he is there, he sees Juliet, and falls in love with her the instant he sees her, not knowing that she is a Capulet. This is a poor choice because, he fell in love without taking into account that she is the daughter of his family’s enemy or any other trait, other than how beautiful she is. He wonders if “my [his] heart love till now? Forswear, it sight, I ne’er saw true beauty till tonight”(I.v.59-60). Romeo exclaims his love for Juliet when he first sees her. He does not know who she is, or anything about her. He fell in love with her based on beauty. If he had not become infatuated so quickly, he could have learned she is a Capulet, later thinks about his...