Forbidden Love in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet

Don’t you hate it when something doesn’t turn out the way you wanted it to? When you care so deeply about something and sacrifice so much just so that it can happen, but despite it all, ends in ruins. This is the theme of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. In this tragic tale, two fated lovers risk everything, even life itself, to be with one another. They go against family, friends and fate to be together. Had premonitions in the play been taken more seriously by key characters, tragedy could have been avoided.

In the play we read of many warnings which, had they been heeded, would have saved the lives of Romeo and Juliet. Warnings such as the Prologue and Romeo’s first dream, “From forth the fatal loins of these foes a pair of star-crossed lovers take their life… doth with their death bury their parent’s strife.” [Prologue. 5-8] Within the very first lines in the story, the Prologue, we learn of two “star-crossed” lovers who are fated to be with each other; however, these two lovers face a vast obstacle: their parents are long-time enemies. These two fated lovers must go against many odds to be together. Within the Prologue it states that, “through their death would bury their parent’s strife”; the only way they can be together, and for their parents to stop fighting, is if they both die. Foreshadowing back to the Prologue we read of Romeo explaining his dream to Mercutio, his closest friend. Romeo and Mercutio were on their way to the Capulet costume party. On the way, Romeo tells Mercutio of his dream that previous night. He had dreamt that something that was meant to happen that night, would lead him to his grave, “Some consequence yet hanging in the stars shall bitterly begin his fearful date with this night’s revels, and e...

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...play been taken more seriously by key characters. Romeo and Juliet are two fated lovers who come from families that are sworn enemies. Their love is not only fated, but fatal; which lead to their deaths. Frair Lawrence and Nurse could have prevented circumstances from getting out of hand, by listening to both Romeo and Juliet’s first declaration of love about each other. Nurse knew her masters’ view on the Montague family, she could have notified the parents of their meeting at the party and their parents could have prevented their affair. Frair Lawrence also could have prevented their death, true that their marriage would have brought peace, but that was a risky chance to take. The families might have been more infuriated with one another than welcoming and understanding. Both characters’ had love in their intentions, but some things do not end the way we intend.