The main individual characters within the play act differently towards the feud and how it is dealt with. Tybalt is known as the ‘prince of cats’ for his swordsmanship, Tybalt’s lust for fighting and victory over the Montague’s fuels the feud a great deal. As it is seen when Tybalt kills Mercutio, Romeo then takes his revenge on Tybalt by killing him, this again fuels the feud. Tybalt’s attitude is more warlike than many other characters, he tries to start fights rather than attempting to stop them, which is more like Benvolio attempts to do. Capulet is another character who alongside Tybalt, can be seen as trying to keep the feud going until the Capulet family wins. He usually is not involved within the actual fights but tries to show his youthfulness by appearing like he would like to fight alongside the rest of his family members. He doesn’t appear to actively encourage the fighting in the feud like Tybalt does, however he does seem to enjoy the fighting that occurs from the feud right up until the end of the play, after Romeo and Juliet die. Montague’s character is more neutral, he wants the Montague family to win the feud however he doesn’t encourage the fighting, he seems to want a peace more than a war between each family although he would like to see this peace at the hands of a Montague victory. Benvolio is seen within the play as a peacemaker, early on during the play Benvolio attempts to stop a fight between the two war waging families, although he successfully does this later on he appears to not be as successful. The Prince acts as the main peacemaker of the play ‘Will they not hear? – What ho, you men, you beasts! That quench the fire of your pernicious rage with purple fountains issuing from your veins’. Later on during the play the Prince becomes more forceful at attempting to stop the feud; firstly he threatens to end the life of those who disobey his command to stop the feud whilst secondly he banishes Romeo from Verona to Mantua. The Prince’s attitude towards the feud can therefore be summarised by saying that he is wholeheartedly against the fighting that the feud produces and the feud itself, we can assume this from the punishments he threatens, the punishments he gives and the way in which he speaks about his negative view on the feud.
Romeo and Juliet’s love is very different to others that we see in the play, a few examples of the different types of love in the play are the Capulet’s attitude towards love in Act 1, Scene 1, Romeo and Rosaline’s love, Capulet and Lady Capulet’s, Capulet and Juliet’s, Paris and Juliet’s and Mercutio’s attitude towards love. The Capulet servants’ attitude towards love in Act 1, Scene 1 is a more aggressive form of love; it is very lustful and boastful, which often links sex and aggression by using words. Romeo and Rosaline’s love can be called unrequited love, which is when Romeo feels love towards Rosaline but receives nothing in return. Another way of describing Romeo’s love for Rosaline is courtly love, Romeo acts like a courtly lover by trying to meet Rosaline and telling of her beauty. Romeo’s love for Rosaline can also be viewed as adolescent love since Romeo acts in a more adolescent way about his feelings for Rosaline. Capulet and Lady Capulet’s love seems to be more related to what Capulet has achieved with his life and the wealth he has gained, this can therefore make Lady Capulet seem rather selfish by wanting the wealth Capulet has made, although the love between the two leaders of the Capulet family can be seen in this way it can also be seen as family love, in which Capulet and Lady Capulet have been with each other for so long that they see each other as family and care for each other as family. Capulet and Juliet’s love appears to be a family love similar to the love between Capulet and Lady Capulet. Capulet wants Juliet to be happy since she is his daughter but also would like her to marry Paris for the wealth he would bring to their family. Paris and Juliet could also be thought of as unrequited love, Paris loves Juliet but Juliet doesn’t show the same feelings that Paris shows in return, Juliet sees the attempted marriage between the two of them as something that has been forced upon her by her family whilst Paris sees it as improving his good name. Mercutio’s attitude towards love is fairly crude, he enjoys making jokes about the love between people ‘run through the ear with a love-song’, he also views love as something to be joked about and something that people should not be afraid by ‘this is the hag, when maids lie on their backs’.
It can be said that fate plays a huge part in Romeo and Juliet’s relationship, not only does fate string the two ‘star-cross’d lovers’ it also tears them apart as well. Fate leads Romeo to the invitations to the party for Romeo and Juliet to meet, it then leads to the death of Mercutio which in turn leads to the banishment of Romeo. All of this in the play is determined by fate and as such it shows how strong fate and chance can be in decision taking. At Romeo and Juliet’s first meeting the love felt between them is usually described as love at first sight, this means that as soon as they laid eyes upon each other they fell in love, Shakespeare shows us this by using a sonnet form for the first time Romeo and Juliet meet each other. This use of a sonnet by Shakespeare tells us that these two characters are in love because sonnets written in those days and nowadays are normally associated with a form of love. These lines are so well-known because of many reasons, most noticeably the way in which they are written, the language that is used and the order in which the words are spoken. Another way that makes some of what is said so well-known is the adjectives that Romeo uses, throughout the time Romeo is speaking to Juliet he uses imaginative and creative adjectives, the interaction between Romeo and Juliet here is not only focused on love but is also focused on the word play that they create whilst speaking. In the other scenes that Romeo and Juliet are together the language thy use between each other is kept in the same flow as it was when they first met, this is to show that their love is everlasting and not just an infatuation, later on during the play however the language that is used between them makes death seem inevitable, often using phrases and mixes of words that seem to tie Romeo and Juliet’s fate to something terrible, this is often shown by regular references to death.
Although Romeo and Juliet’s death is the tragedy of the play not everything that becomes of it is bad, there is good which prevails from their deaths which tells us that their deaths could of and should have been avoidable but did show the people of Verona something they needed. The main good thing that occurs thanks to the death of Romeo and Juliet is the end of the feud, their deaths show the two families how pointless their feud was and how they should have simply pushed it aside, because of this it is arguable that love conquers all. Love wards off evil in the end but with great cost, it could be said that to spare many more deaths and tragedies the deaths of a few must be suffered but that Romeo and Juliet expressed their love for each other by their willingness to die for each other.
