The Theme of Violence in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

The Theme of Violence in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

‘Romeo and Juliet’ is based on the story of two lovers who secretly

married and suddenly separated. It is an old story, much older than

Shakespeare’s play. The plot dates back as far as the third century.

The story then was a familiar one by the time Shakespeare came to

write it as a play.

Elizabethan audiences of Shakespeare’s time had different expectations

to us. When we go to the cinema or theatre, we expect an element of

novelty or invention in what we see. We don’t want it to be too

predictable. We criticise films for copying or ripping off others if

we feel they lack originality. Every single play written by

Shakespeare has sources in literature that date from earlier times.

Romeo and Juliet is based on a poem published in 1562 by Arthur Brooke

called ‘The Tragicall History of Romeo and Juliet’. The characters of

Mercutio and Tybalt are barely developed in Brooke’s version, but

Shakespeare makes them much more important figures. It is, after all,

Romeo’s attachment to Mercutio that forces him to take revenge. Around

the same time, Shakespeare was also writing ‘A Midsummer’s Night

Dream’. These plays have a lot in common, being strongly involved with

the theme of love.

For most of Shakespeare’s life, the reigning monarch was Queen

Elizabeth I. With her counsellors and ministers, she governed the

country. The role of women was simple: to be useful in a domestic

sense only. There was no need for women to be educated or independent.

Girls were seen as the property of their fathers – to be given away to

whoever there father wished. In the same way, when they g...

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...et is dead, kills himself to join her in death. Juliet,

finding Romeo dead, also kills herself, not wishing to live without

him. Their deaths end the quarrels of the Montague and Capulet’s. This

shows that meeting in death could have been the only worthwhile

ending. The arguments boiled down to the relationships between Romeo

and Juliet, but they couldn’t be together. Overall, I think this play

is more violent than it should be. It starts of as a love relationship

and ends with violence and tragedy with a double-teen suicide. I think

from this play, the hatred sticks in my mind the most because that’s

what most of it was about. We didn’t really see much of a love

relationship throughout because it all was arguments over Juliet

marrying. She knew whom she would have been happy with but no others

were going to accept it.