Romeo And Juliet Oxymoret Analysis

At the mention of the phrase, “love can transform a person,” most people reflect upon the happiness and blessings that come with finding one’s other half. William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet broadens the spectrum of love’s possibilities as the play narrates the progressions of a doomed relationship toward death. Belonging to two rival families, the Montagues and the Capulets, Romeo and Juliet cultivate their forbidden love and marry in secret. After a string of misfortunes, including Romeo’s exile and Juliet’s arranged marriage with another man, the two lovers commit suicide, unable to imagine a life without one another. Through the use of oxymorons and hyperboles dotted throughout Romeo and Juliet’s interactions, Shakespeare communicates

When the play first introduces Romeo, Benvolio tries to find the root of his companion’s persistent grief. Instead, Romeo answers with a series of ambiguous riddles and contradicting phrases. Merging the potential joys of love with his current suffering of unrequited love, he expresses the complexity and bittersweetness of romance, exclaiming, “O brawling love, O loving hate” (Shakespeare 1.1.181), and later suggesting that it is both “A choking gall, and a preserving sweet” (1.1.201). Despite his hapless attempts with Rosaline, Romeo holds on to simply the concept of love and his idealistic impressions of romance. Paired with the extremity of his thoughts and emotions, these oxymorons demonstrate his immaturity and inexperience with entirely devoting himself to another individual. Though initially recognized as a character who considers the world with notable maturity, Juliet reacts similarly when faced with a crisis in her relationship with Romeo. After hearing her beloved husband kills her cousin, she becomes irate: “Beautiful tyrant, fiend angelical! / Dove-feathered raven, wolvish-ravening lamb! / Despised substance of divinest show!” (3.2.81-83) The first four oxymorons reveal

On the night of the lovers’ first encounter, Juliet, thinking she is alone, reveals her affection for Romeo on her balcony. When she realizes that he overhears her, she urges him to leave, concerned that her kinsmen would find Romeo, a Montague, and execute him. Completely dismissing Juliet’s practical insight, he responds, “Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye / Than twenty of their swords. Look thou but sweet, / And I am proof against their enmity” (2.2.76-78). In other words, he would rather be stabbed by twenty swords than be told that Juliet does not love him. As long as she returns his love, he claims he is invincible against any animosity or hatred. Romeo’s use of hyperboles emphasizes his illusory and unstable personality, which is directly contrasted with Juliet’s sensibility and reason, regardless of her younger age. After Romeo continues pouring his heart out, also in an exaggerated form, Juliet stops him; she wishes him to be genuine in expressing affection instead of overstating his feelings. However, in a later scene, the characters’ personalities switch. Before Romeo leaves for Mantua due to his banishment, the couple exchanges their last words. Juliet, hesitant to let go of her dearest husband, insists various times that the morning song belongs to that of the nightingale, not the lark. Knowing this is not true and that it is, in actuality, morning, Romeo