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Sympathy for the characters doesn’t become a thought in my head until after the notorious balcony scene when they have told each other how besotted they are with each other and then comprehend that fate suggests they aren’t meant for each other due to their families being arch-enemies.
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Unfortunately it isn’t some misunderstanding, the family situation has become the extreme level where it has brought death upon several servants etc, as each servant and family friend acts like a soldier taking sides with either Capulet or Montague. The families have carried on like this for as longs as the eldest can remember. Hence the deaths also influenced the rational decision from the Prince of Verona to take action whereby anybody discovered fighting leading to death or not, with be punished justly.
So, does Romeo and Juliet meet this point, in my opinion, Yes.
The pervious point leaves me at a nice point to talk about the second point, incompatible demands. For this point I will say that I don’t think Romeo and Juliet lives up to this point with enough emphasis, now to justify this thought. Romeo and Juliet both make an “impossible” decision, or a “not so impossible” decision, now I would agree that the initial dilemma could be classed as an impossible situation, choosing between family and love but Juliet and Romeo cannot feel that it is such an impossible decision when they jump into marriage straight away after only knowing each other hours!
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As for fearing for them or pitying them, this cannot even enter my mind now! I feel it necessary to say that if this was Shakespeare’s intention it wasn’t a wise one, I think this because it is significantly weaker than the rest of the play and if thought through more, could possibly make the play impossible to criticise. However I am not Shakespeare and his intentions are not what I am analysing. Staying on point two and moving hastily on in the play, both Romeo and Juliet are faced with more demand and situations. Romeo at a point in the play is faced with pursuing revenge after Tybalt kills Mercutio. Once again Romeo dives in head first and accomplishes revenge, not considering the threats made by the Prince of Verona or less that but the fact that Tybalt is Juliets cousin. Juliet is faced by dreadful events leading to pity after the previously mentioned event, as Romeo has been exiled much to her dismay, her parents take this as to be grief for her late cousin. To enliven Juliet they go against their previous decision and let her marry Paris, however as we know she is already married and she cries for Romeo not Tybalt. This I do pity Juliet for as everything mentioned was out of her hands and she has to take the consequences. Do we fear for them as a surviving couple? In my opinion we arn’t given enough time to, hence one minute they are married and Romeo gets exiled and the next minute a plan is hatched out to re-unite them!
Going even deeper into the characters minds, is identifying flaws. Romeo, I feel is the tragic figure with most flaws and the easiest of them to identify is his youthful inexperience, shown throughout the play in various events, such as, right in the beginning Romeo Is in love with Roseline
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and he thinks he always will be, funny thing is, she is like an upper class whore and it doesn’t take someone like Einstein to realise it would never work! The second example is the “love at first sight” with Juliet and he just completely forgets about Roseline. He even admits this to the Friar, he loves her no more and has a new flame he is infatuated with, Juliet.
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The point I have already mentioned is when basically Romeo goes after Tybalt and Kills him, this also emphasises how reckless he is.
Juliet on the other hand is hard to figure out, she doesn’t have flaws as such apart from one, which if she didn’t have the play would be a disaster. What I mean by that is, if she just told her mum what has happened, then her mum would either accept it or not. However I think it’s rather sad that it does have to take a death to make real people and the two families realise, that the fall outs are silly!
When I analyse their flaws as a couple feel they do die because of their flaws, Romeo contributes because he spontaneously tell her he loves her and marries her the next day. He doesn’t learn from before, what he should learn is that he could fall in and out of love very easily and it will probably pass on. Its puppy love, that’s all!. The other contribution is when Juliet allows herself to be lead and influenced by this naïve boy, and when brought together they think they are in love “for real”, when I feel it’s a love which would pass on. By not giving it chance the power of the love they have brings them both to suicide. When this isn’t necessary what so ever.
I think this point makes the whole plot of the play, because it’s simple, they are doomed by fate. I think if they weren’t then some people wouldn’t have strong enough feeling about the characters in the play, to rate the play positively. It’s the courage shown by defiance that gives us these feelings. Specific examples of the defiance are times when, they get together for example.
Another short answer is do they learn by their flaws when suffering? Well the only times when Romeo suffers is when he is exiled,
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and when he is he doesn’t think why this has happened, but more about why do all bad things happen him. Its very childish the way he acts.
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The only time Juliet suffers is when Romeo is exiled, she also like Romeo doesn’t appear to learn anything.
Leading me into the next point is how the families reconcile at the end
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although Romeo and Juliet didn’t cause the division, they did help reconcile it intentionally and probably would have never imagined it to ever happen. It is a shame that it had taken such a catastrophic event to do this, which could have been thought through seeing as so the feud started ages ago. Despite the deaths of the youthful star crossed lovers, one good thing came out of it.
From the beginning to the end of the play I feel there were strong feeling present and at the end I did feel calm because everything was settled and nothing else bad could possibly happen! Although in the way I have presented that sentence I feel it give s the impression I was happy with the play when I wasn’t what so ever. So it does live up to this point.
Which once again I am left in a comfortable position to write my conclusion, as I stated above, I was not in any way happy with the play and for me it was a huge let down. As the play is extremely popular and almost legendary as being one of the “great Shakespeare’s” best ever plays I was expecting much more. However it isn’t whether I like play but about the initial question, is Romeo and Juliet a Tragedy? Well, it meets all the points including, number 2, I just didn’t feel in that point enough emphasis was shown and generally there needed to be more throughout the play but the answer is yes, it is.
