At the beginning of the play, Romeo’s parents, Lord and Lady Montague, appear very worried about him,
‘Many a morning hath he there been seen, with tears augmenting the fresh dew…and private in his chamber pens himself, shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out.’ Montague, Act 1 scene 1.
We learn later that he is pining for Rosaline because she has rejected him. The audience may begin to see that his love for Rosaline is not genuine and that he is just entrapped in the emotions and feelings of love . When describing his love to Benvolio, Romeo never makes any direct comments towards Rosaline and could be talking about any girl.
When Romeo talks about Juliet, the feelings are more real because of the language he uses and his behaviour. When he first sees Juliet, he uses figurative language,
‘ As a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear’ Act 1 scene 5.
When flirting with each other, Romeo and Juliet share a sonnet which conveys their immediate love for each other as sonnets are usually about love and said by one person.
They both use words relating to religion,
‘journey of faith…saints…holy shrine…my sin is purged…is holy palmers’ kiss’ Act 1 scene 5.
This may show that the way they are feeling for each other seems right in the eyes of G-d.
Gentle words are also used like lips, smooth, saint, kiss, this repetition of the letter ‘s’ makes Romeos words soothing and seductive.
When Juliet finds out that Romeo is a Montague, she says.
‘My only love sprung from my only hate!’ Act 1 scene 5.
By this, she means that the only person she will ever love was born into the family she has been brought up to hate. So she has a conflict between the strong love that she feels for a boy she has known for one evening and the love for her parents who would disapprove of Romeo.
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is also about parental and familial love. The audience learn about the care and love that the Montagues have for their son at the beginning, when they show concern about Romeo’s unhappy behaviour and at the end, they are very distressed at their sons death.
Although the Capulets love their daughter, they show their love in a different way. They feel that it is their responsibility to marry her off to a respectable man and feel bewildered when she throws this back in their faces. Capulet reacts very badly to the news and gets angry with Juliet because it was unheard of for an Elizabethan girl to disagree with her parents, therefore the audience would have been very shocked. He then treats Juliet like an animal saying that if she does not marry Paris he will not provide a home or food for her.
I feel that the love Lady Capulet shows for her daughter to be very superficial,
‘Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.’ Lady Capulet, Act 3 scene 5.
The nurse acts as a surrogate parent for Juliet by comforting her and sharing her happiness. However the nurse fails Juliet towards the end of the play by telling her to forget Romeo and to try to love Paris.
‘I think you are happy in this second match,’ Nurse, Act 3 scene 5.
This upsets Juliet because she felt the only person who understood the love that Romeo and she were feeling was the nurse and now that Juliet had learned otherwise she must have felt desperately alone and unloved by those around her.
Another figure who the lovers could turn to is the Friar. He marries them in the hope that it would bring their two families together and ends up showing Juliet a way out of the marriage with Paris.
Paris shows genuine love for Juliet and remains faithful to her throughout the play. When Juliet sleeps in her grave under the pretence that she is dead he comes to visit her,
‘Nightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.’ Act 5 scene 3.
He conveys love like Romeo but does not get love in return.
Another type of love in the play, is the love to hate. We see this at the beginning of the play when a fight breaks out between some Capulets and some Montagues. We also see a love of friendship and protectiveness that each house has for each other.
By the end of the play both Romeo and Juliet have matured in many ways including their opinions and beliefs. I think that their love is true considering that they are prepared to die for each other,
‘Thus with a kiss I die.’ Act 5 scene 3.
Their love stands out amongst all other forms of love for the reason that it lasts and it has the most effect on all other types of love in he play.
So far I have discussed various perceptions of love in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. There is real love for young lovers, parental love, difference between love and lust, the love or desire to hate, the love from friends, the surrogate love from the nurse and the friar, who really seems to care about both of the families and the young lovers.
I am now going to compare two aspects of love between Romeo and Juliet when they meet and the relationship that Juliet has with her mother.
The place that Romeo and Juliet meet is in the Capulets house at a huge banquet. Therefore the scenery would be sophisticated and elegant and all the people on stage would be dressed gracefully. I would dress Romeo and Juliet with similar colours so that they would already have a discreet connection. When they see each other for the first time I would have Juliet dancing with Paris and Romeo starring at her. This would show the irony with Paris and I would ensure that Juliet was starring back at Romeo.
When they begin to flirt with each other I would tell the actor playing Romeo to only look at her face to show he is interested in her as a person rather than her body. I would direct the lovers to touch each others faces and hands to show the immediate connection that they feel.
I would ensure that the lighting was soft around them and that everyone else on stage would be oblivious to them.
When they kiss for the first time I would lower the music and tell the other actors to mime their noise so that the audience are focused on this special kiss.
I would have red all around them in the scene to convey love to the audience.
Juliet and her mother have a very strange relationship. Act3 scene 5 shows her mother to be cruel and uncaring towards her only daughter.
She enters the scene in a loving way but when Juliet gives an unlikely response to the wedding proposal, she becomes spiteful.
I would contrast this scene from the other by making the lighting dull. I would have a pretty actress to play Lady Capulet and dress her in fine clothes and drenched in diamonds to show how fake she is.
When she says, ‘Ay sir, but she will none, she gives you thanks. I would the fool were married to her grave.’ I would make the actress look upon Juliet with disgust and would have her standing while Juliet sits, so that the hierarchy is known. Throughout the scene, I would direct both actresses not to touch each other or show any other emotional contact. When Lady Capulet talks of how distressed Juliet and herself are about Tybalts death I would place Juliet in her bed with her mother sitting, looking uncomfortable on the end of the bed.
As you can see, Shakespeare brought many different contrasts of love into the play and it would be very important for the audience to see these distinctions.
In the above I have explained how I would stage two contrasting scenes in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
