The story explicitly starts by staging a violent feud between the two households. Romeo is a Montague and Juliet is a Capulet. The strong love between Romeo and Juliet is being obstructed by their families’ feud. Perhaps part of their attraction is because their love is forbidden. If there were no feud then there would not be any deaths. Mercutio would not have been slained and Romeo would not have the heart to kill Tybalt and be banished. The fathers also make a difference to the story. Verona is a patriarchal city. Fathers hold virtually absolute sway over their daughters.
Capulet was against Juliet’s denial when he arranged her to marry Paris.
Capulet- “….go with Paris to Saint Peter’s Church,
Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither” (Act 3 Scene 5,
Lines 154-5)
Their love could also be said to be merely adolescent passion. Love at first sight for adolescents is very common. Adolescent passion is just pat of the interest in sexual relationships. True commitment is usually not found in adolescent passion. As for Romeo and Juliet their love could have started with mere, sudden, adolescent passion but this then continued and the result was a full commitment. They both were ready to put their own lives in danger for each other. Romeo consumed his liquid immediately he saw Juliet dead and Juliet too stabbed herself ending the story in tragedy. Their
love was too strong and so they were willing to take their lives for it. If this idea of adolescent passion is looked at in another way then we can also say that it was just foolish adolescent love. The sudden love and then followed by a sexual relationship when so young was not the right thing. Romeo couldn’t struggle to live a few seconds more when he saw Juliet dead and Juliet was lost in the so recent love that she had to stab herself immediately.
Was it just bad luck? Fortune is fickle, so maybe no one is responsible, it was all only a series of accidents. It could just be bad luck that the Friar’s letter did not reach Romeo in time. Or was it all fate? Probably their deaths were foretold in the stars. Every step was patterned and arranged. It was probably fate that they were both to die.
Anyway, looking at the whole thing from another perspective, I could say that it is just a play written 400 years ago set in a small town called Verona. Nothing special, nothing important, only the fact that this small town would find fray very often in its streets. There was a longstanding feud between the Capulets and the Montagues and it so happened that a pair of lovers was paired to meet death, which would end the longstanding feud.