Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare as a Tragedy
"Romeo and Juliet" is considered by most people to be Shakespeare's
most tragic work. Two young people die for their love for each other -
what can be more purer, romantic and tragic than that. But is it as
simple as that? What does actually make the play so tragic? Before we
can discuss the tragic aspects of Romeo and Juliet, we must first
understand the meaning of the term 'tragedy'. The Chambers Dictionary
defines tragedy as" a type of drama dealing with tragic events and
often involving the fall of an honourable, worthy and important
protagonist, often with elevated action and language; a play of this
type; the art of such drama; any piece of literature, music, etc
ending with disaster for the protagonist; a disaster, any sad story or
turn of events; any event involving killing".
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy by the definition in the dictionary.
Both lead roles, Romeo and Juliet, die in the play, therefore making
it tragic. However there are many more factors which are typical of
Shakespeare' tragedies which occur, and some factors which make the
play less tragic. Juliet is a more tragic figure because she has no
real control over her life at all. The arrival of Romeo and their
subsequent love affair gives her an alternative to a life controlled
by her father and his choice of husband for her - she could run away
and live a romantic life with Romeo. At the end both Romeo and Paris
are dead so even if she survived there would be no future for Juliet.
Main characters in Shakespeare's plays are often quite innocent and
are swept along by other events happening at the time, for e...
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...nciliation with
her father. Her union with Romeo has lost Juliet her family whatever
the outcome.
'Romeo and Juliet' was written as a tragedy, and is still seen as such
over four hundred years later. A modern day audience may react
differently to some aspects of the play - the treatment of women and
the age of Juliet, for example. In our society, Juliet would still be
considered a child and Romeo would be in as much trouble for his
marriage to underage Juliet as he would be for the murder of Tybalt.
Yet, despite that, our sympathies are with the young couple who were
not responsible for the feud between their parents but who had to
suffer the consequences. The tragedy is inevitable from the beginning.
From the moment Romeo first sees Juliet and they share their first
kiss they hurtle headlong towards their death.
...he opposite of her father, she probably learned a lot of the positive things in her life from her mother (even though her mother still abandoned her).
Getting a divorce was very difficult, most nations would not even end a marriage by having legal consent. Court trials were expensive which made it hard for a women to afford. Even if a divorce was granted the women would not receive anything. The children, land, house, and all of her belongings would be given to the man. If the father choose he could take the children away from the mother at any time and give them to someone else to raise and care for.
“He who falls in love meets a worse fate than he who falls from a
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would
What are we made of? I mean humans of course, but what are we made of. We know what our bodies are composed of but what is in our souls or spirits. Are humans really superior to other living things. Yes we can talk, but what are we made of? We are made of our feelings. Our standards, our way of life, our way of thinking and everyone is different. Some may be straight A students with a normal life while some have had a rough journey and less than perfect grades. But there are some things that I think most people have in them. It’s a positive spirit. Now, everyones is triggered by different stuff but we all have one. But, of course where there is a positive spirit there is a negative spirit which is much, much easier to catch. Even though The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet doesn’t scream positive messages about human spirit there are still some in it such as, love can make you do crazy things, in hard times people can unite, and that even when everyone is against you, you can still do what’s right.
two families. It was unjust of him to send Romeo away from Verona as a
His love for Rosaline is great but yet she can not say the same and
“Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health, still-waking sleep, that is not what this is” (Shakespeare 1.1. 179-180). A string of contradictions explain the love story of Romeo and Juliet, a contradiction. Some critics consider this story a tragedy because Shakespeare once wrote; “the fault is not in our stars but in ourselves”. While others say it does not follow the standard Aristotelian form of tragedy (Krims 1). Romeo and Juliet can not be a tragedy because no flaw causes them to fall, the lovers, could not have controlled fate, and family and friends assisted them to their deaths.
in the bottom of a tomb. ’O God, I have an ill divining soul! Methinks
family servants until he died. Upon her father’s death, this early trauma is shown in her
without her. "He was his wife's man and not his own." When he became aware of
at the place and situation she is now in because of her servitude to her
gave in to his feelings by marrying her in spite of her and her family's
robbed her, as people will ” (417) Due to that fact that her father has driven all the men
mother had to go out and leave him with a friend or relative. In fact,