the play to show him as a young, inexperienced boy who is more in love with the idea
of being in love the Rosaline, instead of actually loving her as an actual person. When
describing her to Benvolio his description of her is mainly focused on Rosaline’s
physical beauty and attractiveness. Rather than explaining why he loves her or what is
unique and special about her that makes him love her, he curses her tempting beauty
and unrequited love.
"Show me a mistress that is passing fair, what doth her beauty serve, but as
a note, Where I may read who passed that passing fair… she is rich in beauty, only
poor, that when she dies, with beauty dies her store…”
Romeo is simply expressing regret for Rosaline’s vow of chastity, unlike the
connection shown by Romeo for Juliet. Romeo also describes Rosaline beauty and
their love with a series of oxymoron’s.
“O brawling love, O loving hate… feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health…”
That Romeo can express extreme emotions for a woman he has never met and barely
knows shows his immaturity and that he has potential of sharing a much deeper real
love, witch he later finds with Juliet. It also shows how stupid Romeo has been acting
while under the influence of ‘love’ as a “feather of lead” can not possible exist, kind
of like how Romeo’s and Rosaline’s love does not exist.
Shakespeare uses certain words to show Romeos false love for Rosaline. At
one point Romeo refers to his love for Rosaline as “grief”.
“Doth add more grief to too much of my own…”
Grief is a word to describe the response to the death of a loved one. It brings pain and
sadness, disbelieve, anger and guilt. It makes you cry and effects you mentally as well
as physically, it can also cause small doses of depression. If effected greatly it can lead
to a loss of faith and religion (which is another theme in the play and one of the
biggest things around in those times). Greif doesn’t signify anything good or happy
and it can cloud your judgement, grief is a horrible painful thing. Shakespeare is
trying to show the audience that Romeo’s ‘love’ for Rosaline is not a good thing and
what this false love is doing to Romeo by choosing words like this to describe love.
When Romeo sees Juliet for the first time he is fascinated by her beauty and starts
to fall for her.
“Did my heart love till now? For swear it, sight!, For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night”
After this Rosaline has been forgotten and Juliet is Romeo’s focus. He can now
distinguish between his false love for Rosaline and his true love for Juliet. Romeo
actively peruses Juliet from the very beginning unlike how he acted with Rosaline.
Romeo initially describes Juliet as a bright jewel
“ Like a rich jewel in a Ethiopia’s ear;”
By comparing Juliet to a jewel in a black woman’s ear Romeo is saying Juliet stands
out against everyone else, she is beautiful, she is rare and precious, she is looked after
like a precious stone. This is more than the beauty he described in Rosaline as he is
signifying that Juliet has inner beauty as well.
Shakespeare uses religious imagery from this point on, like when Romeo
describes Juliet as a holy shrine, to signify Romeo’s move from the overacted
descriptions of his love for Rosaline to the deeper more spiritual true love Romeo has
for Juliet.
“this holy shrine”
Comparing Juliet to a holy shrine shows how much Romeo loves Juliet as it reflects
religion, witch was the biggest thing in those times. A holy shrine is something people
would travel miles to see and worship, this is how Romeo views Juliet.
Like he did with Rosaline to show the false love, Shakespeare uses certain
words to signify the stronger true love of Romeo and Juliet.
“she doth teach the torches to burn bright”
The words torches and bright mean light. Light is something that brings hope and
helps us find our way in the dark. This is kind of what Juliet is doing to Romeo, she is
helping him find his way from the immature boy who was ‘in love’ with a girl he had
never met to the young man who has discovered what true love is.
When Romeo and Juliet express their love for each other in the balcony scene
Shakespeare used dark and light imagery to describe the growing romance between
Romeo and Juliet. Romeo stands in the dark and compares Juliet to the sun, while
looking at Juliet standing in the window, and asks the sun to kill the moon.
“ Arise, faire sun, and kill the envious moon”
Romeo had previously compared Rosaline to the moon but now his love for Juliet is
outshining the moon. Then Romeo steps out of the dark shadows and into the light of
the window, leaving behind any misguided feeling for Rosaline and into the real love
of him and Juliet. At this point in the play, Romeo and Juliet have only just met and
they are both expressing their wished to be married. No such intentions for Rosaline
are expressed or pursued.
Another difference between Romeo’s love for Rosaline and his love for Juliet
is that Shakespeare shows that Juliet loves Romeo back, and she knows what it means
to love him and what she is doing.
“And follow thee my lord throughout the world.”
Juliet knows marriage is part of truly loving a man and been married to Romeo would
be forever and confirms this by stating she will follow her lord wherever he goes.
Shakespeare also gives us another attitude towards love. Mercutio’s. In act 1,
we meet Mercutio for the first time, the impression he gives us is that he is humorous
and witty and doesn't take love seriously.
“If love be rough with you, be rough with love, Prick love for pricking and you beat love down.”
Mercutio is saying that if love is going to mess around with you, you may as well
mess around with love, also meaning it in a sexual manner. We don’t know why
Mercutio has this view of love but it could be for a number of reasons. He could have
been in love with a girl who broke his heart and therefore vowed never to see love as
more than sex.
Mercutio could also be hiding his homosexuality as it was not accepted in
those days. This could also explain why Mercutio hates all pretence. He doesn’t like
Tybalt as he things Tybalt believes he is something better than he is, therefore when
he sees Tybalt pretending to be something he’s not he is reminded that he to is living a
lie and trying to be a different person. You don’t really know why Mercutio has these
views as Shakespeare never states why.
One thing we do know is that Mercutio considers love to be nothing but a feeling
brought on by lust. Mercutio makes a lot of dirty jokes referring to sex and during his
famous Queen Mab speech it does not take him long to switch to the theme of sex.
“She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes…” to
“Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are…
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,…”
He starts talking about fairies and goes onto talking about herpes and whores.
Despite the play being over 400 years old it can never be truly out of date. The
themes surrounding the play are still around today, especially love. Shakespeare wrote
a play that everyone anywhere can relate to at least one character. We have all had that
false love for someone who we believe we love but then realise nothing would ever
come of it, we have all found (or will find in the future) our true love. And there are those who are
still cynical about weather love really exists or believe love is just a
intimate interaction with someone. Shakespeare explores the idea of love by showing
us that love really does exist, even if it’s not in the typical view of the word.
