Shakespeare’s play tells the tragic tale of the “death marked love” of the teenaged lovers, Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet raises interesting questions about the influence of fate upon our lives and the power of individuals to shape and control their own destinies.
Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet in accordance with the traditions of classical tragic theatre. The tragic theatre tradition stipulates that to be a tragedy a play needs to contain the following elements – the protagonist’s choices must led to the tragic events which are usually the death of the protagonist and innocent bystanders who are drawn into the catastrophe .The protagonist makes their choices as the result of certain flaws in their personalities, although they are not portrayed as unlikeable or evil, merely human. The characters of both Romeo and Juliet both belong to this theatrical school of tragedy and the young lovers are very much responsible for their own deaths. Both Romeo and Juliet, although young, vital and endearing are fundamentally flawed beings. Romeo and Juliet both have a tendency to make overhasty decisions without regards to consequences, despite the fact they both display awareness that their course of action is not wise. They are evasive failing to inform their families about the relationship and dishonest with those who are closest to them.
Romeo and Juliet are two of literature’s most beloved characters due to their passionate natures. But ultimately it is their strong emotional natures which prove to be their undoing and results in their deaths as this leads them make hasty and rash decisions. When the play opens on a Sunday morning Romeo pines for the love of Rosaline, whose beauty has not been “matched since the world first began”. Only hours later, however, at the Capulet party his first glimpse of Juliet causes him to wonder if his heart “did love until now” and that he had never seen “true beauty until this night”. Romeo continues to display this emotional volubility throughout the play. Not content with merely kissing Juliet he decides that marriage the next day is a good idea. After the wedding he is unable to control his feelings of rage against Juliet’s kinsman (and now his own) Tybalt and kills him in the heat of the moment. It is this event that sets in motion the train of events that led to his and Juliet’s deaths. Having already killed Tybalt and suffered banishment as a punishment does not make him pause and think when he sees