Romeo and Juliet are to Blame for own Deaths

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James Cockerill 10-o

Romeo and Juliet are to Blame for own Deaths

Shakespeare is said to be one of the greatest sonnet and playwrights of the last millennium.  In this assignment I am going to explore and write about one of Shakespeare’s most famous and talked about plays “Romeo and Juliet”.  Shakespeare didn’t only write tragedies (Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy as we will see in throughout this task).  He also wrote comedies, sonnets, love and many other different styles of play. Throughout the assignment I am going to delve deeply and go into detail about every aspect of the statement “are Romeo and Juliet to blame for their own deaths?”  In order to come to a strong conclusion I am going to look into characters and their roles, language, ideas/themes and structure.  

Shakespeare was born on April 3rd 1564 and was raised in Stratford upon-Avon.  From an early age Shakespeare showed a creative flair and genius for story and play writing.  After many successful plays nearing the end of his second period Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, the play of discussion in this task.  Having said this Shakespeare never actually invented the idea of the play Romeo and Juliet, several writers from Italy, France and Britain had all written plays about two lovers from opposing families. Despite this Shakespeare made a very good adaptation and that is why his is the most famous play of the several previous attempts.

In order to understand this question it would be helpful to have some background information on the play and its contents.  The very first scene of the play gives the audience an idea that there is a conflict going on in the city of Verona between two families, the Capulets and the Montagues.  There is no indication of how long the confrontation had been going on, but we do learn that servants of the families are willing to risk their own lives for the glory of their family and hatred for the other.  This gives us an idea that this was perhaps an ancient rivalry with a lot of passion and hatred amongst the two sides.  

Within the family of the Montagues there is a child, his name is Romeo and him along with the child of the Capulets, Juliet, are the main focus of the play.  To get an idea of the family tree these diagrams will help.

                                                     

Within the first act the heirs of both families Romeo and Juliet have met kissed and fallen in love.  “Sin from my lips, O trespass sweetly urg’d: Give me my sin again”.  Only by the end of act 1 do they realise they are the heirs of bitter enemies.

In act 2 Romeo climbs into the Capulet garden and sees Juliet at her window “But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the Sun.”  They exchange vows of love and Juliet asks Romeo to arrange their marriage.  “Thy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow,”.

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At this point in time I can relate to the initial question.  For now I would have to say that perhaps Romeo is responsible for their deaths, the reason being he attended the Capulet party uninvited, this was the sole reason they met which in turn will obviously result in their deaths.  Another person to blame could be Juliet who was responsible for the engagement which also may in turn result in their deaths.  Having said this there would be no reason to have gone to the Capulet party uninvited if Lord Capulet and Montagues predecessors hadn’t caused an argument ...

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