Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

‘O brawling love,

O loving hate’.

This short quote from Shakespeare’s romantic, ‘Romeo and Juliet’

perfectly sums up what I believe the play to be about; both love and

hate, entwined with one-another. Without love there would be no hate

and without hate there would be no love. Each character is motivated

by both at either separate or simultaneous times. To truly prove this

we must look at each character individually, but first we must

understand what each motive means. By definition, love is when a

person or thing shows warm liking or affection for something. Each

character shows this emotion; Romeo and Juliet are motivated by love

for each other, the friar loves Romeo, the nurse always wants what is

in Juliet’s best interest, Mercutio shows love for his best friend

Romeo and the Capulets show love for pride. Even Tybalt is motivated

by love, love for hate. On the contrary, hate means to show violent

dislike and to show enmity - something that again every character

shows; Romeo, Juliet, the Prince, Mercutio and the Friars all

motivated by hate for the feud. People reading or watching the play

would say that each character shows both these motives but each of

these characters may of said that what they said or did was the

complete opposite to what others think. An example of this is when

Lord Capulet is arguing with Juliet, ‘My fingers itch’, most people

would say that he was motivated by hate at this moment but if we asked

him personally he would probably claim that he was acting in Juliet’s

best interest, therefore motivated by love. This is why we must not

only look at each charac...

... middle of paper ...

...where that

statement is proved true, peace has been brought to Verona, like a

snowy dove would symbolise. The Prince believes that the families are

‘punished’ and therefore is motivated by hate for the feud.

So this play by William Shakespeare is both about love and hate

entwined within each other but it is the clash between adolescence and

adulthood that creates these emotions. It’s almost like the world has

been turned upside down in this play as, ironically, the young are

teaching the old. When Romeo and Juliet both eventually die because of

the strong love for one-another somewhat grows, and also the hate

between the characters is largely reduced. This is tragically ironic

as it’s taken the death of four young children (young teachers) to

finally kill this ‘hate’ which seems to be following the two

families.