Colby Harris

A lot of people tend to question about the romance behind Romeo and Julie. Romeo and Juliet is probably the most famous, and most appreciated, play written of all time and it is written by one of the most famous playwrights to walk on this earth. When most hear of this world renouned play they immediately associate it with a love story. In some ways they are right and you cannot blame their thinking, but it is first and foremostly a tragedy. The point of my paper is to prove one thing, Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy, not a love story.

A love story usually ends happily, leaving the audience fulfilled; opposed to a tragedy which almost always ends with sad death or great loss. According to Virginia Kantra, “…the hero’s ability to protect and provide is still attractive to our readers, another universal element,” (Kantra section 3). So in other words, it is the hero’s responsibility to protect and provide for the other characters a love story, and that’s what the audience expects. So according to Kantra: if the protagonist fails to do so, the story is not a love story. That means when a person depicted as a hero ends his life because of one loss and leaves the rest of the characters in awe, it is obviousely a tragedy. From a different perspective, John Morreal once wrote, “Tragic heroes tend to approach problems and situations in a fairly straight forward manner,” (Morreal box 1). So if in a story the hero comes up with a sound, thought-through plan it almost always leads to success. But, if the hero comes up with the simplest solution possible without working out all of the details it usually end up in death of him/herself, the death of others, or tragic loss and disappointment; in effect making it known as a tragedy. Al...

... middle of paper ...

...e they each saw an opportunity for both a relationship and a way to rebel against their family they immediately sought to grasp it. Also, their decisions are not only “hasty” (Melton paragraph 1), they are “fairly straight-forward: (Kantra section 3). And that leads to the death of both of them. Their fake love and hormones just lead them on their path of immature death; proving the play to be no other than a tragedy.

Unlike the widespread rumors, Romeo and Juliet is to little extent a love story. In a love story it would end happily, which did not happen. The lovers would be given more time to actually fall in love, which did not happen. And, the lovers’ decisions would be backed, well thought out, and plausible, which did NOT happen. There are many stories with some sort of love in them and people should use their heads to determine what they really are.