The Theme of Love in Romeo and Juliet

Part 1

Introduction

In this essay I will be discussing the theme of Love in Romeo and Juliet and how it has affected the characters and their lives. I will try to show how love wins over hate, and that the characters experience many different types of love, and how these types of love cannot always exist peacefully at the same time.

Prologue

The prologue is a few paragraphs explaining the situation of Romeo and Juliet and the environment they live in. It is read by a narrator.

The first lines talk about the two families with the same amount of power, living in Verona. It tells of a violence and hatred between the two families a long time ago that is still going on, and how the people around them are being included in this hostility. This emphasises the seriousness of the situation, “…civil blood…” tells of death.

“… from forth the fatal loins of these two foes…” means that two couples from the conflicting households have brought two children. “A pair of… lovers…” tells of their love for each other through their families hate and “ ...death-mark’d love…” shows that their love will be a fatal love, resulting in death.

It goes on to say that after they die, their parent’s disagreements will come to an end, and that their parents loathing was so great that only their children’s deaths could put an end to it; the continuance of their parent’s rage, which but their children’s end, nought could remove…” and says that for 2 hours the audience shall see “…the fearful passage of their death-mark’d love…”

Finally, it says that what the introduction hasn’t told you that the play “…shall strive to mend.” In other words what hasn’t been said in the introduction will be made clear throughout the play. It’s Shakespeare's way of intriguing you and making you want to stay to watch the whole play.

The prologue informs us that although love brought tragedy, it won over hate, and that love and hate, the most familiar juxtaposition, can affect a whole community. It illustrates that love is powerful but dangerous, and brings us the message that Romeo and Juliet’s love was stronger than the hatred their families had for each other.

In the beginning of the play, Romeo has been sitting up all night thinking about Rosalind and being doubtful of her love for him. He starts losing the will to live and feels “…whipp’d and tormented…”. At he moment his love isn’t bringing him happiness, but he is hoping, perhaps in vain, that it will. His love for Rosalind is arguably not real love at all

Before the feast at the Capulet’s mansion, Juliet is not really aware of love. She loves her mother and Father, and she loves her cousins, and her pets, but this is only one of the types of love, and there is more than one type of love, so she is yet to experience a love like the love she will feel for Romeo. Then her Mother and the Nurse enter the room. The Nurse is like a stand in mother who does all the hard work to bring her up well, until Juliet is at an interesting enough age for the mother to take notice, like when she falls in love with Romeo, or when the mother tries to interest Juliet in Paris, who is a ‘nice rich boy’ in her mother’s opinion and for Juliet all this marriage business isn’t such a big thing. She is fine with doing whatever her mother wants in this region, which shows how little she thinks of it. She makes the remark “I’ll love to like, if looking liking move. But no more deep will I endart mine eye than your consent gives strength to make it fly”

Basically she is saying that she will look at men freely, but unless her mother gives consent for her to look at men with a more meaningful intention, she won’t.

Juliet’s father (Lord Capulet) has a very liberal view towards Paris and is very accommodating towards him. He welcomes his proposal to Juliet with open arms and approves of him as a worthy contender and son in law. Love doesn’t really come into it. He just assumes that because Paris is rich and fairly good looking, Juliet should marry him regardless of whether she loves him or not, which is, to be fair, Juliet’s own view on marriage, but then again she has been brought up to think this because of the society she lives in, without any experience of love for men. He is lavish in his blessings for them and seemingly caring and easy going about the whole thing, his statement “She agree… lies my consent” is an example of his fairness towards Juliet, saying that if she wants to marry, he will approve for the marriage to go ahead.

The Theme of Love in Romeo and Juliet

Part 2

Romeo goes to the Capulet party. He went to the Capulet party because, when he was shown the guest list, he saw Rosalind's name on it and decided to go.

You could also argue that he went because of his friend Benvolio’s comment, “Examine other beauties.” In other words look around; there are more fish in the sea. But I think that it’s a bit of both.

Romeo sees Juliet for the first time and is absolutely besotted with her; he talks about her to his friend ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

The Theme of Love in Romeo and Juliet

Part 2

Romeo goes to the Capulet party. He went to the Capulet party because, when he was shown the guest list, he saw Rosalind's name on it and decided to go.

Romeo sees Juliet for the first time and is absolutely besotted with her; he talks about her to his friend Mercutio, and says, “O she doth teach the torches to burn bright!”

In other words, she’s radiant, full of light. You could also say that he thinks she’s hot and that he thinks that she’s really sexy, because he obviously loves her looks, at the moment, and not her personality.

He thinks that she’s a: “Snowy dove trooping with crows” ~ essentially he’s saying that she is the only beautiful girl in the whole party, and therefore is saying that Rosalind, whom only hours before he was saying was the whole world, is a crow! Some people would say that he is not only using dove as a big contrast but also as a symbol of peace and love and purity.

Another comment he makes is “Did my heart love till now?” this helps to prove that his love for Rosalind was very superficial and that perhaps he is quite fickle and the same thing will happen with Juliet.

He calls her a “…holy shrine…” ~ he worships her! He thinks she is Godly and she has a power over him!

But, when he realises that she is a Capulet, he cries, “Is she a Capulet? …My life is my foe’s debt.” He pledges his life to her. He will do anything by this point for Juliet and it doesn’t matter whose daughter she is, he will still love her.

Further on in the party, Juliet says, “What's he that now is going out of door?” to her nurse. This shows us that she is interested in Romeo and thinks that he is handsome enough to ask whom he is.

You could say that she is just wondering who he is, but I think that when she says, to her nurse, “Go, ask his name. If he be married my grave is likely to be my wedding bed.” I think that this signifies that she is more interested than just wondering who he is; she wants to marry him! She is dazed, she doesn’t want to marry Paris, she wants Romeo!

This quote also tells us that she thinks that she will die if she can’t marry him and has to marry Paris.

This is another indicator of how much Romeo means to her. So she is ignoring her parent’s wishes and has now completely broken the promises she made to her mother.

Some people might also find that this is a pointer to the fact that she will die and also see the irony of her statement.

Another statement she makes is “My only love sprung from my only hate!” Not only does this show how aware of the partition between them she is and how she must wish she was not a Capulet, but it also verifies that she doesn’t love Paris at all, for she calls Romeo her only love.

Later on Romeo is so smitten that he calls Juliet “…the sun!” this suggests that he thinks she is radiant, warm, life giving and fundamental to the existence of the planet, but equally, you could argue that he is also saying that the sun is potentially dangerous; consequently Juliet could hurt him.

He also comments “the brightness of her cheek would shame those stars”

So here he is saying that she is so bright, that compared to the stars, they are dull. This further signals that he thinks she is radiant, the brightest star of them all.

Next, he remarks “bright angel…” This implies that he thinks she has been sent from heaven, and that she is astoundingly beautiful and angelic. He thinks that she is innocent, pure and good, and you could say that he chooses the word angel as another way of saying virgin, to stress her purity as well as describing her “As is a winged messenger of heaven” ~ as again he makes a reference to her being saintly and untainted

Juliet is now on her balcony wondering whether her new love actually loves her.

Then Romeo appears and she asks, “Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say ‘Ay’” subsequently, she thinks that he will automatically say yes even though he might not actually mean it deeply.

She continues; “Thou mayst prove false.” She thinks that he might just love her like he ‘loved’ Rosalind, and not feel deeply about her.

She thinks he might just love her looks and not her.

You could say that she is worried that they might marry, then regret it, because he will possibly go off her and find someone else, and she doesn’t want this to happen not only because she will be hurt, but also because she has so much to lose. For instance, she could lose her parent’s love and respect, and also

Paris’ love not forgetting Romeo’s love.

Another downside to their romance is that it is too fast. “I have no joy in this contract tonight; it is too rash.” Is one of Juliet’s remarks, because she is having further doubts about his love for her and wondering if tomorrow they will feel differently about each other, and that it is just a moments love, and again she is scared of being hurt. She has apprehensions about love, as she has never experienced the love she is feeling for Romeo right now.

Later on, she says, “My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep” to try to portray how intense her love is for Romeo, and you could say that, like the sea, her love has layers and some parts are dark and deep.

“If that thy bent of love be honourable, thy purpose marriage, send me word tomorrow” This means that if Romeo really loves her, and if he wants to marry her, then he should send for her tomorrow so they can be married.

Mercutio is worried about Romeo. He says, “Alas poor Romeo, he is already dead! Stabbed with a white wench’s black eye.” This shows that he thinks that because Romeo loves Juliet so much, and is completely devoted, that this has made him lifeless and ‘dead’, because he has pledged his life to Juliet, and has nothing left to give. He is empty of all feeling but for Juliet and this has arguably annoyed Mercutio, Romeo’s friend, somewhat. This could explain why he calls Juliet a “white wench”. Or perhaps he feels that she is a siren or some kind of voluptuous, loathsome creature that has transformed Romeo into a lifeless body. This could also be the reason he feels Romeo has been ‘stabbed’ by Juliet.

Mercutio’s words are ironic because at the end of the play, Romeo hears of Juliet’s ‘death’ and rushes to the scene, finds her ‘dead’ and kills himself. So you could say this is an artful way of pointing towards Romeo’ s demise. Mercutio is predicting Romeo’s death and he thinks that one day Juliet will be the end of him.

The Theme of Love in Romeo and Juliet

Part 3

When Romeo meets Tybalt, things start to go wrong. Romeos says, “…but love thee better than thou canst devise.” Romeo is talking about familial love; the love reserved for members of his family, because Tybalt is now a relation, although not a blood relation of Romeo. Tybalt doesn’t understand, and when he doesn’t understand things, he gets frustrated, and he has to let out his anger by being violent and then Tybalt starts hitting Romeo. He thinks that Romeo is either mocking him, or showing homosexual tendencies. To Tybalt, both of these possible meanings are equally wicked and either way Romeo should be punished in some way. He then confrontationally says to Romeo, “Romeo…thou art a villain” Tybalt feels that Romeo has wronged him belonging to a family that hates his own and that, perhaps Romeo has actually physically hurt him in some way in a previous conflict between the two houses.

Tybalt can’t figure out why Romeo said that he loved him. He doesn’t believe Romeo, because their families have been at war for years, “…ancient grudge…” ‘Ancient’ tells us how long the long standing feud has been raging and helps explain why Tybalt is so confused.

Tybalt is the fought off by Mercutio, who can’t bear to see Romeo being beaten up this way, for Romeo is not defending himself, because if he fought Tybalt, it would be like he was fighting his own family: Juliet. Tybalt fights back and he kills Mercutio. Romeo is outraged. He not only feels bad about Mercutio's death, but he is infuriated that he prevented Mercutio from defending himself from Tybalt, because this inadvertently caused Mercutio’s death. Romeo cries, “My very friend, hath got his mortal hurt”, and “In my behalf…” which show his anguish and guilt at his friend’s sudden demise. Romeo is so tortured by the guilt of causing his friends death, that he decides to avenge Mercutio’s death by killing Tybalt. He goes after Tybalt following the death of Mercutio and takes Tybalt’s life. He is then traumatized by the reality of what he has just done and says, “My reputation stained”. This could show that he is concerned about his chances with Juliet, after all, he’s just killed her cousin, or he could be anxious about getting caught by the law, and perhaps therefore afraid for his life. He doesn’t seem to really care about Tybalt lying dead on the floor, which could possibly show that Romeo is very self centred, and puts himself before others, or that he is just completely in love with Juliet and can’t see anything past her, and that she comes first.

The words and language Juliet uses when she finds out what has happened to Tybalt are as if she’s just woken up to another side of Romeo that she finds unbearable. She cries, “O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!” This means she thinks that underneath Romeo’s good looks is a bad heart and that deep down he is not quite what she had expected, not the man she fell in love with on the night of the party. She feels used, as if Romeo had lied to her. Another thing she says is “Did ever a dragon keep so fair a cave?” She is saying that she thinks Romeo is really a nasty piece of work but he tricked her into thinking that he was a kind, nice boy who was good looking and an ideal husband for her. She uses a lot of juxtapositions to describe how she is feeling, so she is obviously having very mixed feelings towards Romeo and is confused, she loves and hates him. Some of the phrases she uses are “Fiend angelical!” “Beautiful tyrant!” and, “Wolvish-ravening lamb!” This again shows how betrayed she feels by Romeo’s love and how terrible she feels because her world has just come down around her.

Lord Capulet changes the way he speaks to his daughter after her refusal to marry Paris. When he first speaks about Paris, he is very pleasant about him and tends to be on his side. He backs him all the way and even says “She agree… lies my consent” This shows a very caring attitude towards Juliet. But underneath all this, Paris is still Lord Capulet’s choice, not Juliet’s. He likes to be in control, and he perhaps just says this to make her feel well towards him. But as soon as his feeling of control goes, he starts getting angry. He can’t understand why Juliet could possibly not want to marry Paris. So he gets very irritated with her and pushes her around. “Is she not proud? … Unworthy as she is…” This shows what a patriarchal society they live in, and how her father thinks that she should be marrying to money and a good reputation, not for love or happiness. He doesn’t yet know about Romeo, which could mean he’s angry because he’s suspicious that she’s met someone behind his back, for there must be some reason for her disobedience. This is not the best way of showing your parental love. But they live in a society that thinks that your father’s word is law, especially on the issue of marriage.

Juliet has a change of attitude to her nurse when the nurse tries to persuade her to marry Paris and forget Romeo. It is because a close friend and also a motherly figure has just tried to crush her dream to be with Romeo. She feels like the nurse isn’t supporting her and isn’t helping her, like a friend should, with her decisions. Perhaps the more motherly side is coming out. The nurse just wants the best for everyone, and she knows that if they marry, there will be trouble. She is probably worried about Juliet getting hurt, but this is often mistaken, as in this case, for someone not caring or being unsupportive. This explains why Juliet is so agitated at her nurse’s apparent change of sides. Juliet feels the nurse has betrayed her by backing up her parents and going against her when really the nurse is on her side, and doesn’t want any harm to come to her. Juliet is very let down by this and reacts by saying “Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain”. She is saying that before the incident, they were together but now they are apart. They have split up over Romeo. This shows how much Juliet loves Romeo. She splits up with the nurse in a fit of rage over him, even though the nurse has loved and looked after her for many years. This illustrates how emotional and impulsive Juliet is, and could be the reason she takes such drastic action at the very end of the play.

Lord and Lady Capulet’s reactions over their daughter’s ‘death’ are quite different ones. Lady Capulet cries “Alack the day! She’s dead she’s dead!” This gives you an idea about how heartbreaking her daughter’s ‘death’ is to her but this possibly implies that Juliet is very much like a possession to her. She says, “She’s dead” like she would if her favourite toy had been broken. She is very factual about it, and doesn’t give an indication of how she feels it has affected her. Lord Capulet’s language when he speaks of his daughter’s death is very passionate and loving. He gives you an insight into how he feels about his daughter’s recent ‘death’ and shows real feeling towards her. “Alack, my child is dead…and with my child my joys are buried!” in this statement, he shows a lot more relation to Juliet than his wife. When his wife speaks of the ‘death’ she says “she” and could be talking about anybody. Whereas Lord Capulet at least acknowledges that this girl is his daughter and goes on to say that when her life went, so did his joy and will to live.

I think that from the death of the two protagonists, we learn that even true love does not always bring happiness, and that the most important thing to both parties, the thing that drove them to their deaths was their families, and the ongoing feud between them. I think that they were both very passionate and very in love and their deaths were responsible for peace at last between the two families.

Final Conclusion

In this essay I have discussed the theme of love, and have tried to show the different types of love, and how the conflict between them can sometimes be fatal. I think I have showed how it has affected the characters, the many different types of love the characters experience, and that love will, in the end, win over hate.