Romeo's Change Throughout the Play

Romeo's Change Throughout the Play

I feel that Romeo does not change very much in this play. He has many

sides to his personality; he can be happy, sad and depressed but what

really causes him to die is his impulsiveness; he does not think of

the consequences of his actions and thinks that everything is down to

fate/destiny.

For example, at the beginning of the play, Romeo feels miserable

because the woman he admires does not return her love. Romeo knows

that the woman he desires, Rosaline, will not fall in love with him,

yet he is certain that he will not love anybody else.

In the beginning of the play, Romeo states to Benvolio;

"…Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate!"

Here he emphasises his contradictory feelings of love. This is further

seen as he carries on saying;

"O heavy lightness, …bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,"

where his feelings for love grow stronger.

Shakespeare expresses Romeo's contradictory feelings by showing the

audience that love has the ability to bring a mixture of sadness and

happiness - it can feel like a combination of opposites.

Romeo speaks like this because his feelings for love are threatened by

the warring families, especially since Rosaline is a Capulet. Romeo

states;

"Here's much to do with hate, but more to do with love,"

where he blames the hatred of the two families for his misery of love.

This can show why Romeo does not like to get involved in the brawls

between the two families, especially before the fight with him and

Tybalt. I think Shakespeare is also making a point that Romeo often

wants what he can't have - which explains why he is then so attra...

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...an immature child because he should be

grateful that he is not executed. Instead he only thinks of the

negatives, that he will lose his love from Juliet as he is to be

banished from Verona, he says he would rather die than leave Verona

because he doesn't want to leave Juliet.

At the end of the play again Romeo is shown to be impulsive. As soon

as he hears from his messenger that Juliet is dead, he rushes off to

buy poison so that he can kill himself. He does all of this in such a

rush without stopping to talk to anyone else like the Friar. He blames

destiny (fate) and suicide is his way of defying "the stars", but his

impulsiveness is the part of his character that kills him in the end -

not bad luck.

Overall, I don't think Romeo changes much - he was impulsive at the

start of the play and impulsive at the end.