Sunday, October 5, 2008
Love in Romeo and Juliet
Though the play is often referred to as a romantic tragedy, I think it is easy to see Romeo and Juliet’s relationship not as a tragic, star-crossed true love, but rather as an immature, sexual love. Romeo and Juliet meet, fall in love, and commit suicide in the name of love all in three days. When they first meet there is no time during which they become better acquainted and learn to appreciate each other’s characters. Instead, they fall in love with each other’s looks, sighting each other’s beauty as the reason for their affection. They have no time to build a companionship; on the contrary, their love is solely the lust of two children. Like children, they act impulsively, marrying too hastily and not thinking about the consequences of their actions. It is possible that Shakespeare was attempting to ridicule love by having this fatal relationship occur in such a short amount of time, and wanted to portray love as something unhealthy if it happens too hurriedly without a strong basis.
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2 comments:
I agree that Romeo and Juliet are two young kids who may not truly know what love really is. But then again, who does? They may be immature, moving quickly, and perhaps it is more of a sexual desire driving them than true love, but who are we to say that’s not “real”? I’m just playing devil’s advocate here, because I do completely agree on the view posted above, but I can’t help but still feel that they are somehow truly happy to have found each other, and I don’t think it should be discredited. As they say, “ignorance is bliss”. They may not know “true love” as someone older and supposedly more experienced would define it, but they are loyal, shameless, and passionate. There are plenty of people even as young as us, who think they have found their true love, and may stay in a relationship for years and even get married young and I don’t think we tend to shake our heads at them, but they haven’t necessarily explored all their other options. There are also people who stay married their whole lives who aren’t happy, but have their reasons. Maybe they are “staying together for the kids”, so to speak, or maybe divorce would betray their religious beliefs, maybe they’re just scared of change or just lazy. But if anyone of us saw an older couple together out on the street we would probably assume they had found true love and lived happy lives. But isn’t it all relative?
I think that the question of whether or not Romeo and Juliet love each other is not as significant as the resulting consequences of their love. Whether or not they are “truly “ in love, their passion and devotion to one another trigger a rapid chain of events that lead to their deaths and the deaths of Mercrutio and Tybalt. Shakesphere uses love as a catalyst for the problems the characters face in each of the three plays we have read. In a Midsummer Night’s Dream the four Athenians would never have even found themselves in the fairie’s realm if they had each paired off from the beginning; instead both men were in love with Hermia leaving Helena’s love for Demitrius unrequited and Hermia’s father up in arms. In Hamlet, love, and the passion it ensues is at the orgin of both Hamlet and Laretes’s quests for revenge and Ophelia’s madness. Hamlet tells Horatio that he admirers his levelheaded judgment saying: “Give me a man that is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him in my hearts core.”(III.ii. 72) Hamlet and Laretes are slaves to their passion, their lives are consumed by the need for revenge after their beloved fathers are murdered, Ophelia is also a slave to her passion because she is completely debilitated and eventually driven to madness after the father’s death. Undoubtedly, Romeo and Juliet are both enslaved by their love (be it true, immature or physical) because they are willing to give up everything including their lives for it.
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