Romeo is typical of the hero image because when his friend Mercutio gets in a fight with Tybalt he steps in and tries to break it up because Tybalt is his new cousin having just married Juliet in secret. Romeo reminds them to behave honourably: ‘Gentlemen, for shame, forbear this outrage’ (Act three, scene one). However Mercutio gets stabbed and later dies. When Romeo hears this he is enraged: ‘Away to heaven respective lenity And fire eyed fury be my conduct now’ (Act three, scene one). He challenges Tybalt and declares that ‘either though or I, or both must go with him’ (Act three, scene one) showing that he is prepared to die himself to avenge the death of Mercutio. This is typical heroic behaviour being prepared to sacrifice his own life for what he believes in. Romeo later takes the poison when he finds Juliet in her tomb: ‘Here’s to my love!’ ‘Thus with a kiss I die’ (Act five, scene three).
Juliet seems to be innocent and helpless at first and appears to be very much in love with Romeo but she starts to act like a heroine when the marriage to Paris is arranged by her father. She goes to the Friar who married her to Romeo asking for help and threatens to kill herself unless he can help prevent it: ‘And with this knife I’ll help it presently’ (Act four, scene one). The Friar agrees to provide a sleeping potion that will allow her to fake her own death so that she doesn’t have to marry Paris, again she states that she is prepared to die rather than marry Paris: ‘O bid me leap, rather than marry Paris, from off the battlements of any tower’ (Act four, scene one). Juliet again shows that she is prepared to die when she lays down her dagger beside her bed just in case the sleeping potion does not work and she wakes up in the morning: ‘this shall forbid it. Lie thou there’ (Act four, scene three). Although she is worried about whether the potion will work she is brave and takes it for Romeo: ‘Romeo! Romeo! Romeo! I drink to thee’ (Act four, scene three). She later confirms that she is a heroine by killing herself with Romeo’s dagger when she wakes and finds him dead: ‘O happy dagger!’ (Act five, scene three).
When Romeo first sees Juliet he forgets all about Rosaline: ‘What lady’s that which doth enrich the hand of yonder knight?’ (Act one, scene five). He thinks that she is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen and makes comments about how lovely she is such as ‘Beauty too rich to use, for earth too dear’ (Act one, scene five). He realises that he only thought he loved Rosaline ‘Did my heart love till now?’ and ‘I ne’er saw true beauty till this night’ (Act one, scene five). Their speech together in Act 1 scene 5 is a sonnet and is spoken in rhyming couplets meaning that Juliet’s reply corresponds to Romeo’s speech line by line, this emphasises the exchanges. Although their conversation is mostly about saints and pilgrims there are many comments about kisses and lips from which it is obvious that they are attracted to each other. Juliet says ‘O then dear saint, let lips do what hands do’ meaning that she wants their lips to touch like hands are put together to pray.
In Act 2 scene 2 Juliet says the famous line: ‘O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?’. Their speech is typical of a Shakespearean romance because it starts off subdued but changes speed and energy as their emotions take over, Juliet speaks passionately with quick bursts of emotion and sudden changes of direction, her mood also changes quickly: ‘Well do not swear’. There is tension and the threat of them being discovered. After a while Romeo sounds rather dazed and Juliet takes the lead in planning the action as is the case with other Shakespearian heroines. Throughout the scene there are hints of the outcome ahead such as Juliet’s words ‘I should kill thee with much cherishing’.
In Act 3 scene 1 the play becomes a tragedy when Mercutio is killed by Tybalt. When Romeo hears that his friend is dead he runs into Tybalt and a fight starts, with Tybalt being killed. Tybalt was Juliet’s cousin and as punishment the Prince banishes Romeo from Verona, as he has only just been secretly married to Juliet he now cannot be with her. Romeo says ‘O I am fortune’s fool’ when he realises the situation.
The Friar furthers the tragedy of the situation by suggesting that Juliet takes a sleeping potion to fake her own death & so not have to marry Paris. Despite his good intentions it is a risky plan and not surprisingly something does go wrong.
The tragedy concludes in Act 5 scene 3 when Romeo arrives at Juliet’s family tomb unaware of the Friar’s plan and thinking that she is dead. Paris is already there and is laying flowers on the grave, they argue about Juliet’s death and Romeo urges Paris to go and tells him that he intends to take his own life to be with Juliet. Paris does not go and the two fight resulting in Romeo killing Paris and laying his body on the monument. Romeo enters the tomb and takes the poison he bought from the apothecary. Romeo dies alongside Juliet and moments later she wakes from the sleeping potion and sees Romeo dead beside her. Despite the Friar urging her to flee with him she takes Romeos dagger and stabs herself. The two families arrive on the scene together with the watchmen and try to understand what has happened and why Juliet is still warm after apparently being dead since the night before. The Friar admits his involvement and explains what has happened and how his plan failed when his messenger was unable to reach Romeo. The tragedy and that the two families have suffered makes Capulet and Montague see what their feud has caused and the two families reconcile.
Conclusion
There were hints throughout the play that something tragic would happen. Early on in Act one scene four when Romeo describes his dream and says ‘By some vile forfeit of untimely death’ almost as if the dream was a premonition about the future. In Act three scene five Romeo says ‘Come death, and welcome, Juliet wills it so’ without realising that they will both soon be dead. There was a big clue that the play would end in tragedy when in Act five scene one Romeo learned of Juliet’s death from his servant Balthasar and Romeo says ‘Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee tonight’. The Friar’s plan was to tell Romeo of the fake death of Juliet and have him be there when she awoke from the sleeping potion. Instead Romeo is distraught and goes and buys poison ready to take his own life when he is reunited with Juliet. In Act five scene two we learn why Friar John was unable to get the message of Friar Lawrence’s plan to Romeo.
The play has a tragic ending because the plan that could have meant that they would be together goes wrong. Had Juliet woken moments earlier she could have stopped Romeo from killing himself, likewise if Romeo had not been in such a hurry he would have seen Juliet was not dead. This timing was purely down to chance but had a major effect on the outcome of the play. If they had both lived there might have been a happy ending, although the family feud would have no doubt continued. As it was some good came of it in that the two families ended their feud but the cost to each of them was great with members of each family dying.
I think the play is a romance because in the end Romeo and Juliet are together despite both dying and there is a kind of happy ending although the circumstances are tragic.
