This type of love is overshadows all the others and when Romeo and Juliet are together everything else seems to fade onto the background. This type of love has the power to overcome the hatred between the two families but they were finally destroyed by it in their willingness to die and commit suicide when they think that the other is already dead. When Romeo thinks Juliet is dead, he drinks a poison in Juliet’s tomb and with the words “here’s to you my love… thus with a kiss I die” he dies with Juliet in his arms. In turn when Juliet wakes up and finds Romeo’s dead body she too kills herself this time with Romeo’s dagger “O happy dagger… let me die.” They show that their love for each other is so great that they cannot face life without each other.
Another obvious type of love that also leads to deaths in the play is the love for family. For both the Capulet’s and the Montague’s their family name is of paramount importance, “this by his voice should be a Montague”. So great is the love and loyalty within each family, it leads to the hatred of the other, consequently causing street brawls and deaths; Tybalt uses his family honour as an excuse to attack Romeo in the streets. “Romeo, the love I bear thee can afford no better term than this: thou art a villain.”
Romeo and Juliet realize that they must put aside their family loyalty for their relationship to survive. Their love for each other is so strong that both are willing to make this sacrifice; “call me but love and I’ll be new baptized” says Romeo when Juliet is saying “ ’T is but they name that is my enemy.”
Even the servant’s in the opening scene are willing to fight for the honour of their respective family. “Draw thy tool, here come two of the house of Montague.”
Also willing to fight for some one’s honour is Romeo’s friend, Mercutio. When Tybalt angrily confronts Romeo, he backs down from the fight and offers Tybalt his friendship, which is aggressively rejected. Seeing that Romeo isn’t going to stand up for himself Mercutio tries to defend him. Ultimately Mercutio’s love for Romeo as a friend, lead to his death. Although the start of Mercutio’s fight with Tybalt seemed to be in jest it was still an effort to defend the honour of his friend. When Mercutio dies he shouts “A plague on both your houses” referring to the Capulet’s and Montague’s for their hatred had eventually lead to his death.
Another friend to Romeo was his cousin, Benvolio. He helped Romeo to overcome his unrequited love for Rosaline. Both Mercutio’s and Benvolio’s love for Romeo was of a protective nature.
A different form of love shown by Mercutio is physical and ‘anti-romantic’. This type of love is portrayed throughout Romeo and Juliet particularly by the young men.
In conversations, the language used when talking about women is bawdy and lewd, they use aggressive terms; “thrust his maid to the wall” and they refer to love in a physical way. They view women as possessions and see them merely in a sexual manner and more often than not speak of them in sexual terms; “cut of their maiden heads”.
This is particularly shown by Mercutio who is very cynical of love. In act 1 scene 4, he teases Romeo for his courtly love for Rosaline and ridicules romantic love, seeing it only as a physical desire; “Begot of nothing but vain fantasy, which is as thin of substance as the air.”
Romeo shows physical desire in the form of his conventional, courtly love for Rosaline. At the beginning of the play Romeo follows the traditional stereotype of a lovesick young man, feeling sorry for him self and wallowing in his self pity over his unrequited love for Rosaline; “In sadness cousin, I do love a woman”. Romeo’s speech at this point is over indulgent, overdone and drawn out. This type of love can be seen more as a sickness in that, for Romeo it is depressing and makes him feel terrible.
The language he uses in describing Rosaline contrasts strongly with the way he describes Juliet.
Later on in the play this ‘part’ is taken over by Paris, whose love for Juliet is formal and restrained, he shows very little affection for Juliet and is ready to court and “woo” Juliet as he would have been expected to in Elizabethan times. “But woo her gentle Paris, get her heart”. Paris sees Juliet as a symbol of virtue and would rarely have any physical contact with her. It could be said that Paris is in love with the idea of Juliet’s angelic nature and didn’t see her in the physical way that Romeo does.
Paris was encouraged to court Juliet by her father.
The final type of love in ‘Romeo and Juliet’
It is a human instinct for a parent to love their child, there is evidence of this in ‘Romeo and Juliet’ particularly at the end when the families are grieving the loss of their children.
Although at times, in modern day society, the parents seemed harsh and cruel, as can be seen when Capulet was annoyed with Juliet’s decision not to marry Paris, this would have been acceptable in Elizabethan times as children were expected to obey their parents wishes. “Hang thee, young baggage! Disobedient wretch!”
Again in Elizabethan times it was also perfectly acceptable for richer families to employ a nurse to look after and raise their child. I think this has meant that Juliet’s parents have had less involvement with her upbringing than usual. Juliet viewed her nurse as a second mother, in the same way; Romeo looked to the friar as a “spiritual father”. Although his parents show an interest in his wellbeing, like Juliet’s parents, I think Romeo’s, had little involvement with his life and he sought advice and help from Friar Lawrence.
Although the reasoning for the Friar and the Nurse helping the marriage was to bring the two families together, both the Nurse and the Friar can be seen to have failed to uphold the Elizabethan morals and expectations and maybe gave in too easily in conspiring to aid the marriage of Romeo and Juliet against the wishes of their parents.
Love can take a variety of forms, as we see in ‘Romeo and Juliet’. I think that the different types of love involved in the play all played a part in the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. I feel that the hatred felt between the two families was the underlying cause of their deaths and that it is a shame that it has taken the deaths of their two children for the two families to settle their differences and reconcile.
Fortunately for the families the deaths of their children have encouraged them to reconcile.
