Romeo is portrayed as a romantic, sensitive and to have quite the opposite view to his friends, who are eager to give their opinions.
Mercutio and Benvolio both have a slightly more practical view of love, although, their opinions are still quite different to each other’s. Benvolio believes that love should not force someone to act as though ill and so he advises Romeo,
‘By giving liberty unto thine eyes .
Examine other beauties.’(Act1 Scene1)
This shows his somewhat unromantic view of love with a modern day interpretation of ‘Get over her’. Mercutio sees love as not much past the physical. He shows a robust attitude towards love, however, he also shows a sarcastic approach when he says, (after Romeo claims he is too weighed down to dance),
‘You are a lover. Borrow Cupid’s wings
And soar above a common bound.’
A modern audience would interpret this as ‘making fun’ through persistent punning. This would present Benvolio, Mercutio and Romeo all to be quite boisterous at points, Mercutio being the loudest, more obvious example of this.
Romeo and Juliet fall in love very quickly and impulsively, however they do not both react to their newfound love in the same way. The sudden change of emotion in Romeo is highlighted throughout the play, but especially by Friar Laurence,
‘Is Rosaline that thou didst love so dear,
So soon forsaken?...’(Act2 Scene3)
The audience would probably react in the same way as Friar Laurence at first and then think that it was romantic, the way that Romeo felt so strongly about Juliet that after his speech with Friar Laurence you do not hear of Rosaline again in the play. Romeo also is quite quick to react as though they know everything about each other, in that, he goes, straight after meeting her, to Friar Laurence to talk about marrying her, this is very impulsive. It is quite clear, however, that Juliet is slightly more cautious as she does not run the risk of being seen with him whenever she can avoid it, such as, later on, in Act2 Scene4, when she does not go to meet with Romeo, she sends the Nurse as a messenger. The idea of fate is used a lot in this play, for instance, the idea of Romeo and Juliet being ‘star-crossed lovers’ is very much to do with fate,
‘From forth the fatal loins of these two foes,
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life:’(Prologue)
This is to say that, the children of Capulet and Montague were fated from birth to love each other and then to kill themselves, as though they were helpless to stop it. This can be deduced to mean, that fate had decided that to stop the feuding between the families, the families would each have to lose their most loved child as a reminder that the lives of their children are more important than an ancient feud.
Friar Laurence reacts in a number of ways when Romeo tells him of his love for Juliet. At first, he seems surprised that Romeo would forsake his love for Rosaline so suddenly, however when he finds out that Juliet was a Capulet he said that he would assist in their marriage as it might stop the feud. He was correct in saying that it would lead to the end of the feud just not in the way he says it will,
‘For this alliance may so happy prove,
To turn your households’ rancour to pure love’(Act2 Scene3)
Friar Laurence’s view of marriage is more to do with the uniting of two families than with love because family strength, unity and loyalty were considered more important than personal choice or fulfilment. A common view at the time of writing, was that once the two families were united differences would be put aside, and then love could flourish, which is not the common opinion today, that you do not get married unless you are already in love.
Juliet is not given much choice with the major decisions, her family are constantly influencing. This is shown very clearly in Act3 Scene4 when Lord Capulet agrees for Juliet to be married to County Paris without consulting her. This puts Juliet in a very difficult situation, disobey her parents whom she relies on for everything, or pretend not to be married to Romeo, and deny her religion. Obviously, Juliet looks for the option in which she can, not marry County Paris, to please her parents and her religion, and Friar Laurence helps her with this,
‘Take thou this vial, …
And this distilled liquid drink thou off,’
This shows that in the society in which this is set one would prefer to pretend to be dead than to face the humiliation of being 'outcast' from your family.
I think that Shakespeare was trying to convey several different messages with the ending. In the prologue it mentions that they were star crossed lovers, which means that they were doomed by fate from the start, and even though so much planning had gone into the scheme in which they were to ‘beat fate’ they still did not stand a chance. This is to say; no matter how hard you try, you cannot beat fate. Another message is that, if Juliet had just told her family the worst they would have done is disown her and nobody would have had to die. One last message is that a faulty messenger can lead to tragedy.