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Introduction /Summary of Romeo and Juliet
Introduction /Summary of Romeo and Juliet
A short summary of Romeo and Juliet
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At the point in a person’s life, at which they are a teenager, they will make decisions that will not only affect themselves, but many people around them. David Dobbs says, "...and the teen's sloppier moments can bring unbearable consequences" (Dobbs 7). What Dobbs is saying is that these behaviors are changing the surroundings of the people that the teen was associated with. Examples of this can be found everywhere in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. In line 170 of Act V, Juliet says, "This is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die" (Shakespeare 475). This is where Juliet makes the decision to kill herself, which later on effects Paris, Juliet’s parents, and Friar. Now, Romeo and Juliet have killed themselves over each other. Romeo and Juliet ended their lives, along with the feud going on between their families, but left both of their families with the heartache of them no longer alive. could come from their quick love affair does not even cross their minds. Throughout the course of Act II, Romeo and Juliet rush their relationship because, according to science, …show more content…
For example, Juliet says, “‘Tis’ but thy name that is my enemy… That which we call a rose By any other word would smell as sweet” (Shakespeare 404). From this quote, the reader can acknowledge that Romeo and Juliet are against their families’ feud. Juliet believes that if Romeo were to have any other first name, he would still be the same, charming young man. “Unless philosophy can make a Juliet, Displant a town, reverse a prince’s doom, it helps not, it prevails not. Talk no more” (Shakespeare 435). Shakespeare included this to show how doleful Romeo is feeling. Romeo did not wait to see what Friar was going to say, and instead he thought of how his life would be in the moment. Both Romeo and Juliet, along with the teens of today, have similar feelings, and thought
Romeo and Juliet is a play by William Shakespeare that tells the tale of two young lovers who come from opposing families. At first they don’t even know that the other exists; However, that all changes one night at a party that Juliet’s father, Lord Capulet, throws. Romeo and Juliet fall madly in love and rush to get married. Sadly, these two don’t get a happy ending, and one question remains: who or what is to blame for the lovers’ tragic end? Is it fate or human choice?
The play shows that hasty and rash decisions can have fatal and tragic consequences for some characters in ‘Romeo and Juliet”
We have now read both Pyramus and Thisbe, and Romeo and Juliet. The question we have yet to answer is what has a greater impact on what happened, destiny, or personal choice? We believe that personal choice affected the characters more because they chose to fall in love, Romeo and Juliet rushed into marriage, Pyramus and Thisbe left home on their own terms, and in both stories, the main characters decided to commit suicide. This is something that cannot be determined by the stars, your choices determine what happens, not some mystical prophecy. Though that is what we believe, it is also believed that destiny has a greater impact because they were doomed from the stars.
“Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare is a play about two lovers from different families that have an internal feud between them. It ends in both lovers, Romeo and Juliet, committing suicide as they could not openly live with each other. An important idea in this play is that of the impetuosity of youth and the rash decisions that young people may make. This idea is continuously brought up throughout the play and is explored through the concepts of overreacting and being blinded by anger, desperation in forbidden love and taking your life for love.
Albert Camus points out that for some people, it is easier for them to take their own life, than it is to continue living an empty one. This is the case for the star-crossed lovers, Romeo, and Juliet, in William Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet. Although there were multiple contributing factors to the suicides of Romeo and Juliet, Friar Laurence is directly responsible for their deaths. He is responsible because he trusted someone other than himself to deliver the letter to Romeo, he gave Juliet the potion, and left when Romeo and Juliet were in danger at the tomb.
When one looks closely at the story of Romeo and Juliet, one will see that it is a story with many ethical aspects. The first ethical concern was the two feuding families. How moral is it to hate someone only because they have a certain family name? This all come from a time period when people were fairly focused on religion, which teaches us not to hate. I also question this because I think it is ironic that both Romeo and Juliet seem to be fairly religious, since the first person Romeo went to for help was Friar Lawrence, and a few scenes in the play took place in or around the church. I think that this hatred is especially bad in the case of the Capulets and the Montagues, because I was always under the impression that the families had been feuding for so long that no one really knew why they hated each other anymore. This was the beginning of the problems for Romeo and Juliet. They had a moral decision to make. Should they stay true to their families, and deny their love, or should they stay true to their feelings and disgrace their families? In order to resolve this dilemma, Romeo turns to Friar Lawrence, who perhaps could be seen as the most moral character, to begin with. Because he was a holy man, he was the most logical confidant of anyone in the play. People see men of the cloth as reliable and a good source of advice. Of course, Friar Lawrence has every intention of helping the two lovers, also hoping that he could reunite the feuding families. However, unbeknownst to him, everything he will do throughout the play will have an unnerving consequence. No matter what he did to correct what he had done wrong, it only drug him deeper into trouble. Who ever would have thought that by marrying the two young lovers, he would have caused all of this heartache for the families, and really for all of Verona? No one ever considered the fact that two young people wanting to get married would have affected the entire city. Friar Lawrence was only trying to be a good friend and ally, but everything he did just ended up backfiring for him.
In conclusion, in the play Romeo and Juliet both Romeo and Juliet make decisions that, because of their adolescents are quick and are not thought through which really affects their lives and those of the people close to them. In this day and age you see people who are making bad decisions, for example the use of drugs and underage drinking. The decision to do these things is most of the time done by people who are adolescents. These people dont think about the real consequences that it could have later in their live or event the damage that it does to their bodies right now. These people do it without
Romeo just turns to death as his only option because he can’t see anything else helping him. This shows age takes an effect on the characters reactions to certain situations. Similarly, Juliet says to Friar Laurence, “with this knife I’ll help it presently” (Act 4, Scene 1, Line 55). Juliet as well, turns to death as an option. She can’t open her eyes to the reality because she has the teenage lense on her eyes.
In William Shakespeare’s play ‘Romeo and Juliet’ the main characters are responsible for their own deaths because they refuse to accept responsibility for their own actions. Romeo acts irresponsibly throughout the play making inappropriate decisions. Juliet is persuaded out of her apprehensions by Romeo and is blinded by her unrealistic love for Romeo. However, the two lovers cannot be blamed entirely for their own deaths as other characters and the two lovers’ feuding families hold responsibility.
Teens may seem to make the most stupid, irrational, and rash decisions they possibly could for the seemingly relatively easy lives they live, but being an adolescent isn’t easy. The teen characters from Romeo and Juliet all make some pretty stupid decisions, but they are, in fact, teenagers; their brains are not actually yet fully developed. They don’t have the same capacity to make decisions with the distant future in mind as those of us who do have more developed brains. Therefor, they shouldn’t be held to the same standards as adults, as their brains are just more likely to lean towards risk taking and impulsive behavior - it isn’t their fault. Though adults can help guide adolescents through decisions, teens need to be able to try things and learn by themselves. The adults in this tragedy definitely were not a good example of how to take care of teens, and probably are at fault for the terrible decisions many of the teen characters made, just as much so as the teens themselves.
This hasty action resulted in not only his death, but also the death of his love(r) Juliet. Therefore, through reading William Shakespeare’s famous play Romeo and Juliet, the audience learns an important lesson — that impulsive behaviour will have negative consequences as seen through Romeo’s actions starting with him crashing the Capulet’s party with his friends, to his killing of Tybalt, and finally his haste in killing himself to reunite with Juliet, with each action leading to a different consequence for not only Romeo, but also those around him.
Teenagers that are in love tend to be impulsive and bad at making decisions. In the play Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare, two star-crossed lovers from families that don’t get along have to go against their parents, so they can be together. The language that Shakespeare uses depicts the characters and shows that they are impulsive, which affects the outcome of the play.
Romeo and Juliet’s young love reflects their abruptness, rashness, and lack of maturity which leads to them getting suicide impulses throughout the story and causing Romeo and Juliet to ultimately suicide at the end of the story. Their love causes them to act very rashly and make unwise decisions, such as getting married and killing themselves. They are also too young to love because they are not mature enough. Their lack of maturity influences their decisions, leading to them finding abrupt solutions, such as suicide. After Balthasar told Romeo that Juliet died, he proclaimed, “I do beseech you, sir, have patience/Your looks are pale and wild do import/ Some misadventure” (5.1.27-29). Once Balthasar delivers the tragic news of Juliet’s death to Romeo, Romeo makes a rash decision of going back to Verona, not thinking about the consequences of his act, which would lead to more complications, such as him being...
Reckless actions lead to untimely deaths. In Shakespeare’s tragedy “Romeo and Juliet”, both protagonists fight for their hopeless love. Bloodshed and chaos appear inevitable in fair Verona; Romeo and Juliet come from enemy households, the Montegues and the Capulets, who have sworn to defeat one another. The young and handsome Romeo weeps over his unrequited love for Rosaline, until he lays his eyes on Juliet. Strong and independent, Juliet seeks to escape her family’s will to marry her off to Paris, a kinsman of the Prince. Fate ties these adolescents’ lives together binding them to witness the ill-fortunes of Romeo and Juliet’s love. Romeo and Juliet prove themselves woefully impulsive through their words and actions, which ultimately lead them along a series of unfortunate mishaps.
Fate has a funny way of showing up at the wrong moments in time. Is it possible that our lives are predestined? Or is our understanding of human nature a repetitive cycle of ongoing circumstances that seem to lead in one direction: tragedy. In the play: The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by playwright William Shakespeare. Our two protagonist our faced with a difficulty that is common in our day and age. Two lovers destined to seek each others comfort only to be hindered by an ongoing feud that in essence began before their inception.