“Although I joy in thee,
I have no joy in this contract tonight.
It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden.”
Like Juliet, Romeo, the son of Lord and Lady Montague, finds himself during the course of the play. Parts of his personality that remain constant are that he’s likeable. Everyone seems to like Romeo, and Mercutio and Benvolio both want his attention, and the Nurse thinks he’s honest, courteous, kind and handsome. His mother loves him so much that she dies from grief when he’s banished; even Lord Capulet refers to him as “a virtuous and well-governed youth” and doesn’t allow Tybalt to hassle him. Friar Lawrence is a father-like figure to Romeo, and loves him so much that he’ll do almost anything to secure his happiness. The only exception to Romeo’s fans is Tybalt, however Romeo himself tells Tybalt, “Villain I am none…see thou knowest me not.”
Romeo is a gentleman. He’s virtuous, honest, charming and well-mannered. He charms Juliet by respectfully kissing her hand and calling her a saint; and his manners win over the Nurse when she’s upset by Mercutio. He’s a gentleman to the end, and he grants his rival’s request to be buried with Juliet.
He has the blessing and the curse of feeling things deeply, and is extremely passionate. At the beginning of the play, he’s despairing over his unrequited love for Rosaline. However he is able to give himself completely to his love for Juliet, and his only trouble comes when he gives into “fire-eyed fury” after his friend Mercutio is slain by Tybalt.
Juliet remains the same in some aspects, although she does change during the course of the play. We first see Juliet as a girl, surrounded by her nurse and mother. She doesn’t say much, and obediently says she’ll try to like the man her parents wish her to marry. She hasn’t seriously thought about her life as an adult; she says marriage is “an honour I dream not of.” However, that night, she meets Romeo and falls in love; and everything changes. She begins to act and think for herself, and by the end of the evening, she has taken her future into her own hands, and has become engaged!
At this point, we can see that she is practical but idealistic. She knows there are problems in the world, but she is confident that love can conquer them. For Juliet, marriage and sexual awakening are the bridge between childhood and adulthood. Before her wedding night, sees herself standing between the impatient child she still feels like, and the married woman she is to become. Even though she’s still she’s still living at home, she gives her loyalty to Romeo over her family, even after he’s killed her cousin, Tybalt.
At the beginning of the play, Juliet still minds her nurse, but by the end, she’s outgrown her. The nurse cannot understand the seriousness of Juliet’s dilemma, and the young woman must make adult decisions by herself. The best mark of Juliet’s maturity is that she’s strong enough to be true to herself and to Romeo, even though everyone’s against it and the cost is very high. She’s no longer an obedient girl, but a young woman who has taken charge of her own life. She feels she even holds the final card, “if all else fail, myself have power to die.” By the end of the play, she has come full circle from innocence to experience.
In the matter of a day, Juliet has changed dramatically, and this can be seen by the way she takes matters and life into her own hands. She doesn’t need her nurse or mother to help make any decisions, however, this could be because they may take badly the fact that she is in love with a man from the Montague family.
Before she drinks Friar Lawrence’s potion, it’s obvious that she understands that the evil in the world can hurt her. She realises that the friar could have given her poison to cover up the fact that he had married Romeo and Juliet; she also realises that she could wake up in the tomb and suffocate, or she could go crazy. She still chooses to have faith, and believes that the friar meant no harm, and eventually believes that her love for Romeo is strong enough to resist death.
Language is important to Romeo’s character, as he verbally explores the world. We can use his growing skills with words to chart his growth during the play. When we first see Romeo, he’s in love with the idea of being in love. He’s chosen a girl, Rosaline, who will never return his affection, and is ironically also a Capulet. He is too busy moping around, groaning about how depressed he is than he does praising Rosaline. When he talks, he uses lots of clichés, and repeats himself. Of Rosaline, he says, “She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair, To merit bliss by making me despair.” His mooning leaves him unable to act, and instead, he spends his time wandering through trees or locked up in his room. This isn’t like him, and his family is worried. He even says, somewhat proudly,
“Tut! I have lost myself, I am not here;
This is not Romeo, he’s some other where.”
He then meets Juliet and discovers his true self. Their love is so right that Romeo’s speech is transformed to poetry. The first time they talk together, their conversation effortlessly forms a sonnet. This new love makes him sure of himself straight through his wedding, and makes him strong enough to fight with Tybalt. However, I think that this was a rash and foolish decision made by him, straight after Mercutio was killed, and resulted in him being banished.
By the time Romeo gets to Friar Lawrence’s cell, he’s lost himself, his maturity, and his ability to act. He thinks he’s lost Juliet because he’s killed her cousin, and again his speech becomes repetitive. He’s beyond comfort, and this is much the way he was at the beginning of the play. At this moment in the play, I think that Juliet is more mature than Romeo because she is able to control her emotions at the loss of her cousin, and at the banishment of her husband of only a few hours. Romeo on the other hand drowns his sorrows in Friar Lawrence’s cell, and this may seem somewhat selfish as he is not doing anything to try and make the time he does have with Juliet special.
When he hears that Juliet still loves him and wants him to come to her that night, he springs back to action. After his wedding night, he is more mature and more himself than before. We see that he’s accepted his banishment and is willing to act on it; his words of love to Juliet as he leaves are breathtakingly beautiful. He’s become a man of action, and he doesn’t hesitate to act for the rest of the play.
Romeo is ironically most himself in the tomb. At the time of his death, his words and actions fit together perfectly. He tells us what has brought him to this point; he tells us what he’s going to do and why his love for Juliet has transformed him from a boy who talks in clichés to a man with a powerful command of speech. It’s tragic that when his love is deepest, there will be no real use for it; when his speech is most mature, he will soon be silenced. He has found himself, only to kill himself. In this death, we watch the world lose a fine man.
by Sheelna Gada 11F
