The characters we are first introduced to in the play – Sampson and Gregory – share a common likeness when considering love as they see it as means for sexual gratification. As they wander the streets of Verona they speak of taking the virginity from young women and use bawdy language to describe this thought:
“The heads of the maids,
Or their maidenheads”
We are later introduced to Juliet’s Nurse who also has a mind for physical gratification when thinking or speaking of love. This becomes evident in act two scene four when the Nurse has left to find Romeo in order to arrange a time for the marriage. Benvolio and Mercutio meet the Nurse along the way and tease her with sexual innuendoes. Instead of leaving the nurse stays and attempts to react to the men in a refined manner without showing that she is enjoying the attention as this would have been frowned upon at the time.
Mercutio is a joker and a prankster. He, like the Nurse, sees love as means for sexual gratification and constantly makes sexual innuendoes. He has never experienced passionate love to understand true passion.
Love is also portrayed as being a business transaction. When Capulet and Paris meet to talk about Juliet, Paris requests that he have Juliet’s hand in marriage to which Capulet happily complies. Capulet wants his daughter to marry Paris due to his considerable wealth and so it is clear that he has a certain admiration for Paris.
The main example of love in the play is expressed between Romeo and Juliet as they share a strong passionate love between them. When Romeo sees Juliet for the first time he immediately begins to speak from his heart to talk of Juliet’s beauty and we begin to notice immaturity fading:
“She doth teach the torches to burn bright”
“A rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear”
“A snowy dove trooping with crows”
In these lines Romeo uses light and dark imagery to describe how he feels about Juliet and to contrast her beauty to the surroundings.
Act two scene two sees Romeo in Capulet’s orchard with the hope of meeting Juliet. This is a very risky move for Romeo as he is at risk of being caught and therefore he risks his. When in the orchard, Romeo uses cosmic imagery to speak of Juliet.
“It is the east and Juliet
Is the sun. Arise fair sun
And kill the envious moon”
Here Romeo describes Juliet as an image of cosmic lightness, a great beacon that shuns all with her immense beauty. Although this is impetuous he is expressing his own true feelings for Juliet and not using conventional love poetry. The language he uses is very poetic and romantic which is also evident in Juliet. Juliet uses oxymorons when speaking of Romeo and she wishes that he were not of the Montague family:
“My only love sprung from my only hate”
Parental love is expressed when Lady Montague – Romeo’s mother – unexpectedly dies when her son is banished. This conveys a strong bonding love between parent and child as she dies from grief.
Romeo and Juliet’s passion is heavily expressed in the final scene when Romeo discards all attributes of straight thinking to ignore his banishment from the city of Verona to return to his true loves’ ‘deathbed’. When Romeo kills himself and Juliet awakes, she is angry that Romeo has left any poison for her to commit suicide. Therefore she draws Romeo’s dagger and stabs herself. Although this is tragic, it also shows the couples unconditional love for each other and how they cannot live without each other. For them to commit suicide is a major extremity as in Elizabethan ages it was believed that if one committed suicide they were doomed to spend eternity in hell.
Love is a main theme throughout the play, but through the love there is the underlying destruction at the climax of the play. The reader knows that the relationship is doomed from the beginning of the play as it states in the prologue that they are “star- crossed lovers” which suggests that although they share undying love, fate will eventually consume them from life.
