'Romeo and Juliet is a play that celebrates young love' Agree or Disagree?

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‘Romeo & Juliet’ Essay

Written between 1594 and 1595, ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is the most famous and well known Shakespearian love tragedy ever told. The story revolves around the two young, star-crossed lovers, who cannot understand the hatred of an older generation. This eventually leads to the untimely death of our heroes, whose love was so strong that they choose to die together than live their lives apart. Although ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is a play that does in fact celebrate young love, it is not the central theme of this timeless story. ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is a cautionary tale as it shows us that ‘love can be dangerous’. It is a story of young love and its perils. Capturing the minds of all its viewers this tragedy concerns major themes such as destiny, pain and hatred which all show the problems that can arise from young love.

One of the foremost themes in the play of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is destiny or the ‘greater power’, as the Friar calls it. The predetermined, usually inevitable, course of events is ‘destiny’. This theme runs throughout the entire story and plays a large role in showing the perils of young love. In its first address to the audience, the Prologue states that Romeo and Juliet are ‘star-crossed’, that is to say that fate controls them. One major example is the scene just before Romeo leaves for the Capulet Ball, where he meets and falls in love with the fair Juliet. He quotes: ‘Some consequence yet hanging in the starts….By some vile forfeit of untimely death. But he hath the steerage of my course, Direct my sail!’  

In this scene, Romeo fears that something yet ‘hanging in the stars’, something destined to happen, will set in motion that night.  His premonition seems to keep with what the Prologue tells us and adds to the sense of foreboding. Romeo believes that going to the Capulet Ball will lead him to his end. He then uses the analogy of a ship sailing, the wind sent by God. He believes that if God wants this to happen he will leave it up to God to direct him through his life. The film made in 1996 by Luhrmann shows during this quote, of Romeo having a prediction of himself walking down an aisle of the dead. This is the same place, in chapel where he later goes to see Juliet’s assumed dead body. Film techniques such as the use of mid-way shot and dramatic music are played in the background, to make it seem more intense and to highlight the mood of the scene. Romeo is acknowledging and cautioning the audience that fate or destiny, God directed things, cannot or should not try to be changed.

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Romeos’ perspective of leaving everything up to God changes throughout the play, from the scene shown after Romeo hears from Balthasar that Juliet is dead. Romeo says: ‘Is it e’en so? Then I defy you stars’. Romeo is suggesting that Juliets’ death was destined to happen, but he rejects the stars that have decided to separate Juliet and him. He will be with Juliet despite Gods plans. He is telling the ‘stars’ that he will be the master of his own destiny, not God and asks the rhetorical question ‘Is it e’en so?’ meaning ‘is it really true?’.  In the ...

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