Romeo “Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,
Still-waking sleep, that feel no love in this.
Dost thou not laugh?
BENVOLIO “No, coz, I rather weep.”
ROMEO “Good heart, at what?”
BENVOLIO “At thy good heart’s oppression”
ROMEO “Why, such is love’s trangression:
Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,
Which thou wilt propagate to have it pressed
With more of thine: this love that thou hast shown
Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.
Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs,
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes,
Being vexed, a sea nourished with loving tears.
What is it else? A madness most discreet,”
Romeo becomes self-pitying. Romeo presents Rosaline as having wit and being strong, as she will not be hit by Cupid’s arrow, she lives unharmed and she is rich in beauty. All of these characteristics show a woman out of Romeo’s league. As Shakespeare never lets us meet her we are left to think by ourselves of what kind of woman she really is and what does she look like Arranged love is like courtly love, a feature of aristocratic life in Shakespeare’s time.
Marriage was less to do with love and more about wealth and family status. Women were like commodities to be traded. Virginity was important because it made a woman more valuable, a ‘purer product’. Lady Capulet was married this way and her relationship with Lord Capulet was terrible. He was the head of family and was considered all-powerful. Girls expected to be obedient and dutiful. When we first meet Juliet she acts like ‘A good girl’ and she always does what she is told and always acts with great courtesy “Madam, I am here. What is your will?” But her attitude changes when she meets Romeo because it is love at first sight and she doesn’t act like her normal self. Shakespeare’s attitude to this is that she has been good all her life and now that she has met Romeo a power has over come her. It was usual in Elizabethan plays for a forced husband character, Paris is not ‘forced husband’ He Persues a conventional Courtship. But he is particularly nice and Shakespeare complicates things like this because he becomes a worthy love rival. Bawdy love is basically lust. A “bawd” is the Elizabethan word for whore. All sorts of people would come to Shakespeare’s plays, and he had to keep them all happy. Bawdiness was for the lower classes. Sampson, Gregory and the Nurse all use bawdy humour, but Mercutio is the most obvious example “ This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs, That presses them and learns them first to bear, Making them women of good carriage. This is she-.” He is constantly punning. This shows how he generally behaves, he is a bit of ‘A Playboy’ and he has a lenient approach to love and in his world it probably doesn’t exist. Mercutio doesn’t provide much help to the love of Romeo and Juliet because he doesn’t know about it.
In today’s society family and marital love is considered the strongest form of love, but in this play this is a very complex issue. The friar and nurse effectively act as substitute parents by comforting and advising the lovers. The Montagues and Capulets are prepared to fight, even kill each other, for the sake of family pride. There isn’t a lot of family love there is just family pride. Although the Montagues and Capulets hate each other, there is a sense of honour and respect between them.
Lord Capulet can still sing Romeo’s praises at the ball, example act1.scene5
CAPULET “A bears him like a portly gentlemen;
And to say truth, Verona brags of him
To be Virtuous and well-governed youth.
I would not for the wealth of all this town”
Also in act3.scene1 Romeo says
ROMEO “Tybalt, the reason I have to love thee…”
The friar believes that sex is a sacrament, and ensures Romeo and Juliet are married before they sleep together. He is well intentioned but misuses the sacrament of marriage for political ends in trying to unite the warring households. Despite their incredibly hasty marriage, and seeming irresponsibility, I think Romeo and Juliet do have the real thing because they sound like they are totally in for each other. It was love at first sight for them and after that they had to be together all the time. If this were not true the events at the end would not have happened. The characters of Romeo and Juliet develop because of their love. Juliet becomes more practical and self-reliant. She never had a cold resolved voice tone like in Act4.Scene3
JULIET “My dismal scene I needs must act alone.
Come, Vial.
What if this mixture do not work at all?
Shall I be married then tomorrow morning?
No, no, this shall forbid it; lie thou there.
[laying down her dagger]
What if it be a poison which the Friar
Subtly hath ministered to have me dead,
Lest in this marriage he should be dishonoured,
Bcause he married me before to Romeo?”
Before she knew Romeo. Romeo’s passion is seemingly so strong he does not hesitate in choosing his fate. I think in a way they haven’t grown up a lot at all, I think it’s just because they fell in love with each other that their attitudes to other things had changed. Some of the aspects of love we have looked at are more important than others. In my opinion family and marital love, and true love are the two most important ones.
It is Tragic as Romeo and Juliet are Dead near the end of the play, There deaths come as a shock as Romeo drinks the poison while next to Juliet who is alive but in a Dead state from her potion that the friar gave. Which is very sad and upsetting. As the reader or audience know Juliet is not Really Dead.
ROMEO “Here’s to my love! [Drinks.] O true apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die. [Dies.]”
A Bit later after the death of Romeo, Juliet wakes up from her dead like state and finds Romeo dead and she decides to kill herself because Romeo had died. She stabs her self with Romeo’s dagger.
JULIET “Yea, noise? Then I’ll be brief. O happy Dagger,
[Taking Romeo’s dagger.]
This is thy shealth;
[Stabs herself.]
there rust, and let me die.
[Falls on Romeo’s body and dies.]
It is a great tragedy that they both die for true love one cannot live without the other.
It’s a waste because they both could of stayed alive and together if Juliet woke up before Romeo killed himself and stopped him from drinking the poison Romeo would still be alive and so would Juliet because she wouldn’t of killed herself with Romeo’s dagger because Romeo would be alive, so no need for Juliet to commit suicide.
Their deaths don’t end the play, another form of love ‘Civic love’, social peace and harmony are restored when the feud is resolved.
CAPULET “O brother Montague, give me thy hand.
This is my daughter’s jointure, for no more
Can I demand.”
Love does not get destroyed – it survives in another form.
A statue is made in honour.
MONTAGUE “But I can give thee more,
For I will raise her statue in pure gold,
That whiles Verona by that name is known,
There shall no figure at such rate be set
As that of true and faithful Juliet.”
CAPULET “As rich shall Romeo’s by his lady’s lie,
Poor sacrifices of our enmity!”
Peace and hormony is formed as the two feuding family’s take hand and resolve there long feud from the deaths of there son and daughter.
PRINCE “A glooming peace this morning with it brings,
The sun for sorrow will not show his head.
Go Hence to have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardoned, and some punished:
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”
And for a Love story to have so many aspects of love, Romeo and Juliet is “The greatest love story to be ever told”.
By Chris Yeap 11J
