Romeo and Juliet Themes Essay

Submitted By JasonHerman
Words: 1208
Pages: 5
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Jason Herman
Per. 2
2/22/13
Romeo and Juliet Essay Romeo and Juliet, written by the famous William Shakespeare, shows how teenagers act in many different ways at different times. This love story focuses on two rival families. A Montague named Romeo, and a Capulet named Juliet quickly fall in love. However, everything goes terribly wrong, as Romeo is banished form Verona, the setting of the play, which ultimately leads to the suicides of both Romeo and Juliet. The “star-crossed lovers”, along with some other teenage characters made some horrible decisions. Shakespeare proved this in the play by showing how teenagers fall in love too quickly, make the wrong desicions, and lastly are very deceitful, clever, and lie. Teenagers believe in “love at first sight” but in reality, true love can never start that way. After meeting and kissing one another, Romeo and Juliet are both shocked to hear the others background. On page 791, Juliet says, “My only love, sprung from my only hate.” Juliet has just found out that Romeo is a Montague and is shocked. This is significant because it shows that they took things way to fast. They both already believed they were in love even though they did not know each other. Juliet finding out Romeo was really her rival afterwards, proved how they fell in love too quickly. Another example is immediately after meeting Juliet; Romeo goes to see Friar Lawrence to ask him to marry the two. The Friar questions Romeo’s love for Juliet because only just a day before he was depressed about being rejected by a different girl, Rosaline. However, Romeo says, “No, I have forgot that name and that name’s woe” (Page 804). Romeo has basically just told The Friar that he has forgot all about Rosaline, and claims he is now in love with Juliet. This quote is significant because it shows how Romeo may just be desperate. He is not really in love with Juliet, just thinks he is. As a teenager, he is not mature enough to understand the fact that they do not know each other, therefore cannot truly be in love. The Friar, being more mature, knew best and could tell this was not a good idea. These two examples show how teenagers should get to know a person before falling in love because they cannot truly be in love without knowing the person. Shakespeare made me notice how often teenagers make the wrong decisions. An example of a wrong decision made in Romeo and Juliet is when Juliet said “Romeo, Romeo, Romeo, I drink to thee” (Page 851). At the time of the quote, Juliet had been forced to marry a county named Paris. The Friar gave her a potion to make it appear as is she is dead. The Friar said he would then alert Romeo and tell him to come take her. In this quote, Juliet says she will drink the potion, just for her and Romeo to be together. This quote is really important because it actually leads to the deaths of both Romeo and Juliet. It is interesting because Juliet did think about what might happen if she drinks the potion and what might come of it. However, she still made the wrong decision by drinking the potion, which eventually lead to Romeo believing she was actually dead and then killing himself. Tybalt and Romeo also made an obvious bad decision in the “fight scene”. Tybalt was still upset about Romeo coming to the ball earlier. As a result, he got into a battle and killed Mercutio and then was killed by Romeo. (Page 822). To begin with, Tybalt should have never started the battle. He needed to control his anger, which he did not. He then killed Mercutio, which was another bad decision, and he obviously did not think about the consequences. Also, Romeo could of thought about what would happen if he then killed Tybalt but, like Tybalt, he couldn’t control his anger. Both, Romeo and Tybalt did not make the right decisions by having this fight because it lead to Tybalt’s death and Romeo’s banishment. These are examples of how teenagers often make the wrong decisions, even when their life is at risk. In the
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