Romeo and Juliet.

Another type of love that was portrayed in the play was that of duty and obedience Juliet’s parents want her to marry Paris. However Juliet does not have any feelings for Paris but she loves Romeo. Because of her love, duty and obedience towards here parents Juliet will be obliged to marry him to make her parents happy and not upset them. Juliet turns to her nurse for help as she feels alone and the nurse is the only person she can talk to she tells her of her and Romeos love and the nurse agrees to be the go between for her. The reason the nurse chooses to do this was because she fells very close to Juliet and she sees her as a daughter. The nurse is also very romantic and this may be one of the reasons why the nurse helped her. Some people may think that the nurse should of followed her duty and obedience to the family by helping Juliet she has betrayed the trust of the family by helping Juliet in her love with her families enemy. Another example of duty and obedience in the play is Tybalt and his love for fighting. Although he loves fighting the main reason he fights is part of his duty and obedience to the family. It shows that a certain amount of his love for fighting is also his love for his family he does this to pro6tect and keeps up the family name.

The next aspect of love in the play that I will be looking at is infatuation. I believe that Romeo and Juliet’s love is very much to do with infatuation. There romance developed very quickly they met on the Sunday night and were married and had sexual intercourse by the following might. Shakespeare appealed to his audience in particular queen Elizabeth the 1st with the whole subject on courtly love. Queen Elizabeth was seen as a figure of desire she was untouchable as was rosé line untouchable to Romeo she was a figure of desire for him and it wasn’t real love he felt for he but it was lust and desire. However when he met Juliet she crushed all his feelings for rosé line and he began to feel real love. His love for Juliet was not the same love he felt for rosé line, as Juliet was both willing and she felt the same towards her. It was actually Juliet who made most of the moves such as sending the nurse with messages to Romeo etc. The light imagery in the play ids used in order to show how the play gets darker as the tragedy unfolds in the sonnet at the begging Romeo is saying how Juliet gives torches there light ‘O she doth teach the torches to burn bright’ in the end they both die under torch light in the church. There is also religious imagery in the play to when the pair first met in the sonnet spoken by Romeo he says how he is the pilgrim and she is the saint. Instead of praying with palms together Juliet and Romeo pray by touching lip to lip Juliet: ‘Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in a prayer’ Romeo: ‘O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do: they pray grant thou, lets fait turn to despair’.

Romance is the next aspect I will be looking is romance. A good example of this is the character Paris. Paris is madly in love with Juliet and wants her hand in marriage; However Juliet does not wish to marry him, as she loves Romeo. Paris has a very close relationship with Juliet’s parents and they are very fond of him, believing that he is a good potential husband for Juliet and they want her to marry him. The love between Romeo and Juliet is very romantic I believe that this is because it is forbidden and Juliet is willing compared to Romeos infatuation with Rosé line where she didn’t feel the same and Juliet’s relationship with Paris where she does not love him. I believe this is why they are both very romantic towards each other because of this.

In conclusion of looking at all there different aspects of love in the play the different cultures between the families I believe this is a very affective theme giving the audience a variety of attitudes towards the opposite sex and love each one contrasting and high lighting Romeo and Juliet’s love for each other. Romeos attitude towards love and the opposite sex changes during the play. In the beginning Romeo sees women only as sex objects and often mistakes love for lust and infatuation. At the beginning of the play Juliet is very obedient towards he family and would do anything to make them happy however towards the end of the play her attitude changes and she becomes very withdrawn from her family as she feels very alone and she marries Romeo the son of the Montague family arch rivals of her family at the beginning of the play she would not have done this.