Romeo and juliet (1968) love theme

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Themes are the fundamental & often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

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The Forcefulness of Love

Romeo and Juliet is the most famous love story in the English literary tradition. Love sầu is naturally the play’s dominant and most important theme. The play focuses on romantic love sầu, specifically the intense passion that springs up at first sight between Romeo và Juliet. In Romeo và Juliet, love is a violent, ecstatic, overpowering force that supersedes all other values, loyalties, and emotions. In the course of the play, the young lovers are driven to lớn defy their entire social world: families (“Deny thy father and refuse thy name,” Juliet asks, “Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, / And I’ll no longer be a Capulet”); friends (Romeo abandons Mercutio and Benvolio after the feast in order khổng lồ go khổng lồ Juliet’s garden); and ruler (Romeo returns khổng lồ Veromãng cầu for Juliet’s sake after being exiled by the Prince on pain of death in 2.1.76–78).

Love is the overriding theme of the play, but a reader should always rethành viên that Shakespeare is uninterested in portraying a prettied-up, dainty version of the emotion, the kind that bad poets write about, và whose bad poetry Romeo reads while pining for Rosaline. Love in Romeo và Juliet is a brutal, powerful emotion that captures individuals & catapults them against their world, and, at times, against themselves. The powerful nature of love can be seen in the way it is described, or, more accurately, the way descriptions of it so consistently fail lớn capture its entirety. At times love is described in the terms of religion, as in the fourteen lines when Romeo and Juliet first meet. At others, it is described as a sort of magic: “Alike bewitchèd by the charm of looks” (2.Prologue.6). Juliet, perhaps, most perfectly describes her love sầu for Romeo by refusing to lớn describe it: “But my true love is grown khổng lồ such excess / I cannot sum up some of half my wealth” (3.1.33–34). Love sầu, in other words, resists any single metaphor because it is too powerful to be so easily contained or understood. Romeo & Juliet does not make a specific moral statement about the relationships between love sầu và society, religion, & family; rather, it portrays the chaos và passion of being in love sầu, combining images of love sầu, violence, death, religion, và family in an impressionistic rush leading khổng lồ the play’s tragic conclusion.

Love as a Cause of Violence

The themes of death và violence permeate Romeo và Juliet, & they are always connected to passion, whether that passion is love sầu or hate. The connection between hate, violence, and death seems obvious. But the connection between love sầu and violence requires further investigation. Love sầu, in Romeo và Juliet, is a grvà passion, và as such, it is blinding; it can overwhelm a person as powerfully & completely as hate can. The passionate love sầu between Romeo và Juliet is linked from the moment of its inception with death: Tybalt notices that Romeo has crashed the feast & determines lớn kill hyên just as Romeo catches sight of Juliet & falls instantly in love with her.

From that point on, love seems khổng lồ push the lovers closer lớn love sầu và violence, not farther from it. Romeo & Juliet are plagued with thoughts of suicide, and a willingness khổng lồ experience it: in Act 3, scene 3, Romeo brandishes a knife in Friar Lawrence’s cell và threatens lớn kill himself after he has been banished from Verona & his love sầu. Juliet also pulls a knife in order to lớn take her own life in Friar Lawrence’s presence just three scenes later. After Capulet decides that Juliet will marry Paris, Juliet says, “If all else fail, myself have sầu power to die” (3.5.242). Finally, each imagines that the other looks dead the morning after their first, & only, sexual experience (“Methinks I see thee,” Juliet says, “. . . as one dead in the bottom of a tomb” (3.5.55–56).

This theme continues until its inevitable conclusion: double suicide. This tragic choice is the highest, most potent expression of love sầu that Romeo and Juliet can make. It is only through death that they can preserve sầu their love sầu, & their love is so profound that they are willing khổng lồ over their lives in its defense. In the play, love emerges as an amoral thing, leading as much to destruction as to lớn happiness. But in its extreme passion, the love sầu that Romeo & Juliet experience also appears so exquisitely beautiful that few would want, or be able, to lớn resist its power.

The Individual Versus Society

Much of Romeo and Juliet involves the lovers’ struggles against public & social institutions that either explicitly or implicitly oppose the existence of their love. Such structures range from the concrete khổng lồ the abstract: families và the placement of familial power in the father; law and the desire for public order; religion; & the social importance placed on masculine honor. These institutions often come inlớn conflict with each other. The importance of honor, for example, time & again results in brawls that disturb the public peace. Though they bởi not always work in concert, each of these societal institutions in some way present obstacles for Romeo and Juliet. The enmity between their families, coupled with the emphasis placed on loyalty & honor khổng lồ kin, combine lớn create a profound conflict for Romeo and Juliet, who must rebel against their heritages.

Further, the patriarchal power structure inherent in Renaissance families, wherein the father controls the action of all other family members, particularly women, places Juliet in an extremely vulnerable position. Her heart, in her family’s mind, is not hers lớn give. The law và the emphasis on social civility dem& terms of conduct with which the blind passion of love cannot comply. Religion similarly demands priorities that Romeo & Juliet cannot abide by because of the intensity of their love. Though in most situations the lovers uphold the traditions of Christianity (they wait lớn marry before consummating their love), their love sầu is so powerful that they begin khổng lồ think of each other in blasphemous terms. For example, Juliet calls Romeo “the god of my idolatry,” elevating Romeo to lớn level of God (2.1.156). The couple’s final act of suicide is likewise un-Christian. The maintenance of masculine honor forces Romeo lớn commit actions he would prefer khổng lồ avoid. But the social emphasis placed on masculine honor is so profound that Romeo cannot simply ignore them.

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It is possible khổng lồ see Romeo and Juliet as a battle between the responsibilities và actions demanded by social institutions và those demanded by the private desires of the individual. Romeo & Juliet’s appreciation of night, with its darkness and privacy, and the renunciation of their names, with its attendant loss of obligation, make sense in the context of individuals who wish to escape the public world. But the lovers cannot stop the night from becoming day. And Romeo cannot cease being a Montague simply because he wants to; the rest of the world will not let hyên. The lovers’ suicides can be understood as the ultimate night, the ultimate privacy.

The Inevitability of Fate

In its first address to the audience, the Chorus states that Romeo and Juliet are “star-crossed”—that is khổng lồ say that fate (a power often vested in the movements of the stars) controls them (Prologue.6). This sense of fate permeates the play, và not just for the audience. The characters also are quite aware of it: Romeo & Juliet constantly see omens. When Romeo believes that Juliet is dead, he cries out, “Then I defy you, stars,” completing the idea that the love sầu between Romeo & Juliet is in opposition to lớn the decrees of destiny (5.1.24). Of course, Romeo’s defiance itself plays inkhổng lồ the hands of fate, & his determination khổng lồ spkết thúc eternity with Juliet results in their deaths.

The mechanism of fate works in all of the events surrounding the lovers: the feud between their families (it is worth noting that this hatred is never explained; rather, the reader must accept it as an undeniable aspect of the world of the play); the horrible series of accidents that ruin Friar Lawrence’s seemingly well-intentioned plans at the end of the play; & the tragic timing of Romeo’s suicide & Juliet’s awakening. These events are not mere coincidences, but rather manifestations of fate that help bring about the unavoidable outcome of the young lovers’ deaths.

The concept of fate described above sầu is the most commonly accepted interpretation. There are other possible readings of fate in the play: as a force determined by the powerful social institutions that influence Romeo & Juliet’s choices, as well as fate as a force that emerges from Romeo & Juliet’s very personalities.

Love

Given that Romeo & Juliet represents one of the world’s most famous và enduring love sầu stories, it seems obvious that the play should spotlight the theme of love. However, the play tends lớn focus more on the barriers that obstruct love than it does on love sầu itself. Obviously, the Capulet and Montague families represent the lovers’ largest obstacle. But the lovers are also their own obstacles, in the sense that they have divergent understandings of love sầu. Romeo, for instance, begins the play speaking of love sầu in worn clichés that make his friends cringe. Although the language he uses with Juliet showcases a more mature & original verse, he retains a fundamentally abstract conception of love sầu. Juliet, by contrast, tends to remain more firmly grounded in the practical matters related khổng lồ love sầu, such as marriage and sex. This contrast between the lovers appears clearly in the famous balcony scene. Whereas Romeo speaks of Juliet poetically, using an extended metaphor that likens her to lớn the sun, Juliet laments the social constraints that prevent their marriage: “O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo? / Deny thy father & refuse thy name” (II.ii.33–34).

Another obstacle in Romeo & Juliet is time—or, more precisely, timing. Everything related khổng lồ love in this play moves too quickly. The theme of accelerated love first appears early in the play, regarding the question of whether Juliet is old enough for marriage. Whereas Lady Capulet contends that Juliet is of a “pretty age” và hence eligible for marriage, Lord Capulet maintains that it’s too soon for her to marry. When Lord Capulet changes his mind later in the play, he accelerates the timeline for Juliet’s marriage khổng lồ Paris. Forced to lớn act quickly in response, Juliet fakes her own death. Everything about Romeo and Juliet’s relationship is sped up as well. Not only vày they fall in love at first sight, but they also get married the next day.

The lovers’ haste may raise questions about the legitimacy of their affection for one another. Do they truly love each other, or have sầu they doomed themselves out of mere sexual desire? The theme of accelerated love returns at the play’s end, when Romeo arrives at Juliet’s tomb, believing himself lớn be too late. In fact, he arrives too early, just before Juliet wakes up. His bad timing results in both their deaths.

Sex

The themes of love and sex are closely linked in Romeo & Juliet, though the precise nature of their relationship remains in dispute throughout. For instance, in Act I Romeo talks about his frustrated love sầu for Rosaline in poetic terms, as if love were primarily an abstraction. Yet he also implies that things didn’t work out with Rosaline because she preferred khổng lồ remain a virgin: