How does Shakespeare present the theme of love and its links to violence, suffering and death?

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Jessica Pelizzari 11Z

How does Shakespeare present the theme of love and its links to violence, suffering and death?

Throughout the play ‘Romeo and Juliet’, Shakespeare presents the audience with various forms of love; spiritual and physical, genuine and artificial love, and encourages them to think about their links to suffering, hate and deatth.

        The first example of this is Romeo’s love for Rosaline, which is clearly and directly linked to suffering as his love for her is unrequited. However despite this link to pain, this is one of the more comical elements of the play and I think Shakespeare is using this relationship to introduce the idea of love being nothing more than a feeling of lust and desire as in these first scenes Romeo appears very insincere. When Romeo talks of Rosaline he uses very formal, melodramatic language and clichés such as “under love’s heavy burden do I sink”. It could be argued that this is simply because language in these times was very elaborate, but although this is true, I believe that there is a very striking difference between Romeo’s speeches and those of the other characters. When Romeo is expressing his love for Rosaline, his words seem rehearsed as though is playing a role in a play and this makes him seem affected and his love artificial. Lady Montague says that he “shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out and makes himself an artificial night” thus it is evident that Romeo is enjoying the drama and apparent suffering that is attached to his love.

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        The idea that love and hate run as very close parallels is a very clear theme throughout the play and is first identified in the first speech in which the scene is set. It talks of “two households both alike in dignity” who are fighting and states that “from forth the fatal loins of these two foes a pair of star-cross’d loves take their life” This highlights the similarity of the Capulets and the Montagues and emphasises that having the capacity to hate someone brings with it the capacity to love them. This point is also raised by Romeo who ...

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