Theme Of Love In Romeo And Juliet

Imagine: boy meets girl, they fall in love, they marry, they die out of passion for each other. Now imagine this happening over the course of three days. Does the love they shared appear as true as before? Romeo and Juliet is known as one of the most romantic story ever written, though the Prince could not have said it any better, “For never was a story of more woe / than this of Juliet and her Romeo” (5.3.320-321). It's almost ironic how Shakespeare's play is often thought of as a story of true love, and not as a tale of two immature youth who believe they hold more than simply infatuation. Shakespeare shows that the love shared by Romeo and Juliet is nothing more than naïve attraction. For instance, (cut here?) Romeo is depressed about being “out of love” meaning the attraction he feels is not mutual, but he instantly forgets about his lovesickness, and the one he was in love with, when he locks eyes with another girl. This means that he never actually had true love to begin with as he first thought. There are characters in this story of immature love who recognize the inconsistency of Romeo's love and that Romeo’s feelings are nothing more than sexual attraction.

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When Romeo is first introduced, he is depressed about being “out of love” because Rosaline, the girl he is supposedly in love with, does not return his affections. In Benvolio's attempts to persuade Romeo to forget her and find other women at the Capulet's party, Romeo angrily yells, “One fairer than my love? The all-seeing sun / Ne’er saw her match since first the world begun” (1.2.98-100). He says that no one could possibly match the beauty of Rosaline. Romeo believes he knows love, but really, he wants love. He is in love with the idea of being...

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...m a true love. Even Juliet was ignorant enough to say “That ‘banishèd,’ that one word ‘banishèd’ / Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts” (3.2.124-125) after Romeo had killed Tybalt and was banished for it. She is stating that banishment is worse than the murder of ten thousand Tybalts. Though, who is to say what true love is and how long it takes to develop? Romeo and Juliet could in fact be in love, but it cannot be denied that they are going about it in an immature way. Romeo believed he had found eternal love with Rosaline, but one look at Juliet and he forget about his lovesickness and then decided Juliet was his true love. This inconsistency was seen by other characters such as Mercutio and Friar Laurence, who say that Romeo’s feelings were merely infatuation and not love as he had said they were, showing that Juliet is a replacement Rosaline.

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