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Literary analysis of romeo and juliet
Romeo and juliet analysis tragedy
Literary analysis of romeo and juliet
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“Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception.” ― Niccolò Machiavelli. The term deception takes a part in betraying another for one’s self interest. It was a key element within Shakespeare’s works. Romeo and Juliet are one of the prime examples of this topic. They showed deception very clearly by hiding their actions and betraying their families, leading to their tragic ending. However, it was not the only piece Shakespeare wrote that showed the multiple consequences caused by an act of betrayal. The power of deception and the consequences that follow is a staple in literature, and no one shows this idea more clearly than Shakespeare. "Oh! What A Tangled Web We Weave When First We Practice To Deceive" -Sir Walter Scott. Shakespeare …show more content…
Shakespeare did not only write about love for a partner, but love for power. He masterfully depicted the love of power through the use of deception. In the beginning of the story Hamlet, the king has passed with little suspicion of him being murdered. It was not until the son of the king was told, by his father’s ghost, that he had been murdered by his brother, Claudius. Claudius wanted to control his future in terms of power and wealth. He did this through the murder of his brother and the deception that he was stung by a serpent and not poisoned. Instead Claudius confesses, “That cannot be, since I am still possessed/ of those effects for which I did the murder; my crown, mine own ambition, and my queen." (III, iii, 54-56). This statement given by the king’s brother, Claudius, informing the audience of his vicious act, greed, and deception in his pursuit of the crown. Juliet, being one of the main characters in Romeo and Juliet, states, "My only love sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown, and known too late! Prodigious birth of love it is to me, that I must love a loathed enemy." (I, v, 35). Within this story, the audience is aware of the Capulet and Montague feud between the two families and who Romeo and Juliet are. When Romeo and Juliet meet, they are not aware who the other is. By Juliet stating …show more content…
In the play Macbeth, the title character went along with killing his king, Duncan, and three other characters throughout the play because it was foretold by three witches in multiple prophecies. Despite these betrayals perpetrated by Macbeth, he believed he was doing the right thing. This is illustrated in the final scene of Macbeth, where Macbeth was forced to battle against a man who used to trust him. In his last remarks he says, “I will not yield, to kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet… Before my body I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff, and damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!” (V, viii, 27-34). Despite achieving all his gains by murder, lying, and betrayal of every single person that trusted him, he refused to admit defeat or any wrong doing. This ultimately lead to his life being taken away. In Romeo and Juliet, the final scene begins with Juliet having just awoken after her sleeping potion, discovering Romeo lying over her dead. Shattering any hope of a future with him. She then decides she cannot and will not live without him and decided to take her own life, stating, “O, happy dagger, this is thy sheath. There rust, and let me die.” (V, iii, 122). Tragedy was an overall element in comparing these two works. An essay titled, “The Essence of Shakespearean Tragedy”, the author states, “We recognize tragedy in literature because we find that it
Did you know that Romeo and Juliet was one of the biggest love story of all time. Romeo and Juliet is a story of two star-crossed lovers from two families the Capulets and the Montagues. The Capulets and the Montague had a big fight that made the families very angry at each other. Romeo and Juliet decide to get married. The two couple marry and run away. In the process both of them will die. When it comes to Romeo and Juliet who are the top three people that caused the two to die. The two people that are chosen are Friar Lawrence and Lady Capulet. Friar was chosen because he is the one that married Romeo and Juliet. Lady Capulet was chosen because she is forcing Juliet to marry Paris which is making Juliet want Romeo even more. The third thing
Many people claim that love and hate are the same thing, while others say that the two emotions are complete opposites. William Shakespeare explored the two emotions in his play Romeo and Juliet. In the play, Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet are teens who grew up in families that have been feuding longer than either family can remember. However, the two meet out of unforeseen circumstances, and fall irrevocably in “love”. They woo, and within twenty-four hours they are married. Things seem to be going well until Romeo is provoked into killing Juliet’s cousin, Tybalt, and gets himself banished. Juliet is also promised to marry Paris, an eligible bachelor, while she is still mourning Romeo’s banishment. She decides to see one of the two people who know of her and Romeo’s marriage, Friar Laurence, to whom she says that if she cannot find a way out of being alone she will kill herself. The Friar gives her a potion to sleep for forty-two hours and appear dead to help her. The plan is that Romeo is supposed to be there when she wakes up, but Romeo hears that she is dead and kills himself at her feet. She then awakes and kills herself as well, ending the whole brutal affair. The reader is then left to wonder if what they have just experienced is a tragedy of young love or a lesson on the power of hate, a question for which Shakespeare leaves a blurry but definite answer. After a deeper look into the text, it becomes clearly evident that hate has far more power over the characters than their “love” ever could.
Macbeth, on the other hand, has forgotten his guilt, and is even willing to fight in the face of certain death when he learns of Macduff's unmotherly birth. While both characters may be viewed as foul, the theme still applies. One would expect, stereotypically, that Macbeth would be the one trying to convince his queasy wife that killing the King would be a blessing. Instead, Shakespeare turns things upside down and puts the pants on Lady Macbeth. Just as we're beginning to accept this, he turns it around again, with Lady Macbeth's suicide and Macbeth's heroic (although evil) bravery.
When Romeo found out who Juliet was, he says to himself, “o dear account! My life is my foe’s debt” (I v, 132). Regardless of the fact they were offspring of two feuding families, Romeo can’t help himself but love Juliet, he loved Juliet beforehand of he even discovered Juliet’s identity as one of the Capulet. It is planed he will love Juliet even its forbidden. Furthermore, when Juliet found out from the nurse that Romeo was a Montague, she says, “my love sprung from my only enemy! Too early seen unknown, and known too late! Prodigious birth of love it is to me. That I must love a loathed enemy” (I v, 152-155). Even Juliet didn’t know beforehand that Romeo was an enemy, by fate, she still loved him unconditionally. When she did find her true love was her arch nemesis, it was too late for Juliet to forget the love and hate
Many people think that society has changed so much over the years. That the way that children act, has taken a turn for the worst, but in reality children are learning from their ancestors. Children are lying to their parents, they are sneaking out at night to be with a boy that is “the one”, children are going back into the age of Shakespeare. In the play “Romeo and Juliet” which was written by William Shakespeare in 1597, there are two teenagers, Romeo and Juliet, who fall in love with each other. These two teenagers try to do everything that they can to live the rest of their lives together, except their families despise each other, so there is no way that they can live the rest of their lives together. So, many people believe that the way that our children are growing up today is taking away the fun parts of their childhood. However in this play Juliet did many of the things that teenagers are trying to do now. Children and sometimes adults now need to realize how your actions not only affect you but also the people around you, you also need to think about the consequences of the actions you make. At first Juliet falls in love at first sight with Romeo, then she takes a potion, which causes her family to think she is dead, and then how Friar Lawrence helps Juliet with the scheming, which shows how adults have to think about others as well.
Throughout the play Macbeth allows his pride to interfere with his judgment and succumbs to the witches’ prophecy, leading to his tragic downfall. “Macbeth orders a slaughter of innocents in a vain and futile attempt to preserve kingships threatened by prophecies” (Hassel). He murders King Duncan, his good friend, in order to secure his fate as king. Although Macbeth knows the difference between right and wrong, he is a victim of his tragic flaw: his ambition. His tragic flaw repeatedly leads him to deceit and murder.
First of all, the dishonesty of Friar Lawrence, who married Romeo and Juliet, foreshadows the probability of his continuity to take even more insincere measures in manipulating the consequences faced by the young lovers. The Friar carries out an erroneous act of secretly marrying them under the church’s license without manifesting it in the public and encourages them to deceive their parents by keeping their relationship to themselves. He then agrees to marry Juliet and Paris, a county, and plans on faking her death, in order to avoid the marriage instead of revealing the truth about Romeo and Juliet right away. “I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it,/On Thursday next be married to this County.” (4.1.49-50) In short, various incidents in the lives of Romeo and Juliet, controlled by Friar Lawrence’s cowardice result in undesirable circumstances.
Everyone at some point in their lives lies even when they know that they should be telling the truth. Deception is a key element in William Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet are both deceptive to their parents when they do not tell them about their marriage. They then continue to lie, Juliet telling her parents she would marry Paris when she secretly arranged to fake her death and Romeo deceiving Friar Laurence by going back to Verona. All of the deceiving in the play leads to conflicts, which eventually ends in death of both Romeo and Juliet. By showing how Romeo and Juliet being deceptive to their parents and role models led to pain and conflict, Shakespeare shows that you should always be honest if you want to maintain
Dishonesty can lead to many tragedies in life. Juliet thinks everything is going as planned. She drinks the potion, she “dies”, and everyone thinks she’s dead, so they bury her. The only thing left is for her to wake up from the potion and be with her lover Romeo. Things change and don’t go how they were planned.
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth tells the story of a general who commits a regicide in order to become king. Early in the play, Macbeth is conflicted as to whether or not he wants to kill his kinsman, the king. In the first two acts Macbeth is not portrayed as a ruthless killer; he is a sympathetic character who succumbs to the provocation of his wife and a prophecy foretold by three mysterious witches. In contrast, Lady Macbeth is a manipulative, immoral woman.
Of all the things that occur in Romeo and Juliet, the death of Tybalt is one of the most climatic parts of the story. Yet, this all started from another killing of a different person, Mercutio. Mercutio, a relative of the Prince and friend of Romeo, and Tybalt, nephew to Lady Capulet and Mercutio’s arch enemy, were in a heated conversion when Romeo walked in after getting married to Juliet and saw what was going on. Tybalt and Mercutio began to fight and Romeo tried to come in between them to stop the whole thing. Unfortunately, as Tybalt was under Romeo’s arms, he stabbed Mercutio and he died soon after. In all the rage, Romeo was furious that his friend was dead and starts to fight with Tybalt. Eventually, Romeo slays Tybalt and he falls to the floor and dies. Romeo runs away in agony before the Prince soon arrives at the scene of the fight with all the other citizens that were awakened by this fray to see what happened. Although Romeo is guilty of homicide, he is charged for manslaughter as he unlawfully killed a person in the heat of passion while defending Mercutio’s honor.
The one thing that all of Shakespeare’s plays have in common is a tragic conclusion, which results in the death of the hero. What is unique about the deaths of these heroes is that all of the problems that lead them to the end are self-induced. The heroes are always in control, and make crucial judgemental errors which ultimately lead to their own demise. While it is clear that the hero Macbeth causes his own death in this famous play, there are also third-party influences which push him towards this end. The three witches plant a desire for power and growing confidence in Macbeth, while Lady Macbeth eventually persuades him to go down a path of violence, and kill King Duncan in order to take his place on the throne.
How Shakespeare Explores the Theme of Deception and Self-Deception in Twelfth Night Deception is the use of deceit that deceives everyone around you including yourself. It is the fact or state of being deceived. It can be a ruse or a trick in disguise, which deludes, giving a sense of indirection. It’s a misleading falsehood. One can deceive by running away from even their true self either physically or mentally.
Everyone is to blame for the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Romeo, Juliet, Friar Laurence, and Romeo and Juliet’s parents all played their own role in causing the four deaths of Romeo, Juliet, Tybalt, and Paris. It is not just one of them to blame, every one of them did something to cause the tragedy. Some of them played a bigger role than others, but everyone contributed. Fate had nothing to do with it and it was all the different characters faults. Romeo, Juliet, and Friar Lawrence’s rash decisions where the main cause of the tragedy.
The passage below is found in the opening act of one of Shakespeare's most illusive plays of control and manipulation. The word "deception" is defined as "the act of misleading" or "to trick, cheat, lie, and mislead". From this definition, it is obvious that deception is normally perceived to be evil and results in the harm of others mentally and physically. It leads to broken hearts, untold truths, or even unpunished murder. However, in Shakespeare's The Tempest, deception is used as a virtuous art to manipulate an unjust situation and rectify it.