The Tragedy of the Teenage Brain: An essay about Romeo and Juliet
What would the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet be if Romeo and Juliet were only a few ages older and not teens? Well, there are a conglomerate of possibilities starting with their impulse control, if Romeo and Juliet met when they were, at the very least, twenty-five they may have not acted as impulsive as they did. Maybe Romeo wouldn’t have kissed Juliet during their first meeting and instead would have courted her. Or maybe if Romeo didn’t propose on their second meeting they could have had a long marriage that united their families, and maybe if Romeo didn’t slay Tybalt he wouldn’t have been banished and wouldn’t have brought about his own demise. As teenagers the two star-crossed
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In a Ted Talk video by Adriana Galván “The teenage brain is really good at seeking out new experiences enjoying thrills and seeking out thrills.” That is because of the prefrontal cortex it is the part of the brain made for decision making and impulse control, because of that teens are more likely to seek out thrills than adults or children but that is because their lack of impulse control causes them to be reckless. In a Ted Talk video by Adriana Galván she mentions “that the brain matures and continues to do so” and “Your brain changes everyday and as you sit in this room your brain is reacting to my voice, to the person sitting next to you and your experiences ant the people you affiliate with shape the way your brain ultimately develops.” This means that although it is unsure if the brain keeps developing past the mid twenties it is a known fact that the brain constantly reacts and changes to the environment around it, which is completely different from the original belief of it over a decade ago. One example of the brains constant changes is in Romeo and Juliet when Friar Lawrence says “Holy Saint Francis, what a change is here! Is Rosaline, whom thou didst love so dear, So soon forsaken? Young men’s love then lies Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes” (Act 2 Scene 2). Showing how …show more content…
For example Juliet wanting to immediately kill herself after her husband was banished from Verona, it is not a proud moment but I admit I would do the same if I never was able to see or contact my best friends again. Also I may not be able to relate to Romeo’s “I’ve known her for about three hours, only two of them I knew her name, I’m going to marry her” thing but I can relate to him blurting out his love confession for no reason due to his emotions because as a teen it’s basically shocking to claim that someone hasn’t had an emotional word vomit and emotions moment. I can not say much for my peers but I do understand that I am an impulsive, pleasure seeking, mess who never sleeps and always wants to eat and honestly it truly is relaxing to understand why. Writing this essay I wanted to do something spontaneous and extra that would put me above others so I planed to write in “You are a Saucy boy,” somewhere or use “elasticity” or even go above and beyond and mention “Synaptic Pruning” but those plans fell through. So basically teens should only be held accountable for certain things, like heedlessly second hand killing four people, but not things like being a little impulsive, or sleeping late, or being a little reckless. Romeo and Juliet should face the consequences of their actions, the prefrontal cortex is reckless and impulsive during
Love is dependent upon the slightest change, but it can cause the utmost drastic consequences. This is the truth of two lovers in William Shakespeare’s furthermost celebrated play, The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. In the case of Romeo and Juliet, love is inimical. Romeo comes from the family of Montague while Juliet comes from the family of Capulet. For reasons unknown, these two families are sworn enemies. However, Romeo and Juliet are not. In fact, they are in a secret relationship that only two others know about. The only two that Romeo and Juliet trust, the Nurse and the Friar. While the Nurse, Friar, and Juliet’s father, Lord Capulet, all have good intentions, they are all responsible for the suicides of Romeo and Juliet in the
William Shakespeare was born on 26 April 1564 (died on 23 April 1616), in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire. Shakespeare was a poet, playwright and actor and has written about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems. Shakespeare wrote many successful plays such as, Julius Caesar, Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet was written at the mid-1590s in London and even today it is considered to be one of the greatest plays ever written. It is a play based on a long dispute between two families, the Montague’s and the Capulet’s, and takes place in the cities of Verona and Mantua, Italy, over the course of four short days. From constant quarrels to deaths and a banishment, Romeo and Juliet go on loving each other until the end. The play starts with a somewhat happy and a tad comedic feeling but ultimately ends as a tragedy. In this essay I will be analysing how Shakespeare presents the consequences of impulsive behaviour of Romeo.
During adolescence the body and brain is still developing. Since Juliet was thirteen and Romeo was seventeen. They were still developing into adults. In the website tittled Young Adult Development Project it states “ adolescence changes brain and thinking structures”. This proves their thought process was not clear and not quite mature. Furthermore it also says “ The Prefrontal Cortex problem solving in development” . This explains that their problem was not solved with logical and wise decision. It is This could have been avoided if they were
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.
Romeo and Juliet’s irrational decisions turn them into pathetic figures that make poor choices, which lead to their deaths. Their poor actions not only affect their families but all who get in their way. Before getting married they were warned about the consequences that their rushed love could trigger, however they paid no attention to the opinions of others and through the course of the play did everything in their power to hold onto their relationships. Their parents on going feud caused them to keep their relationship a secret, which lead to their illogical decisions such as resulting to suicide as the answer to all their problems. Romeo and Juliet truly never reflected through any of their decisions, they were unreasonable and selfish making them pathetic characters.
In the nonfiction article “The Teen Brain: Still under construction” by NIMH, the author believes the teen brain is still developing emotionally, intellectually, and hormonally.
For example, in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet it says, “ROMEO Alive in triumph—and Mercutio slain!/ Away to heaven, respective lenity,/ And fire-eyed fury be my conduct now./Now, Tybalt, take the “villain” back again/ That late thou gavest me, for Mercutio’s soul/ Is but a little way above our heads,/ Staying for thine to keep him company./ Either thou or I, or both, must go with him./ TYBALT Thou, wretched boy, that didst consort him here/Shalt with him hence./ ROMEO This shall determine that.” This passages describes Romeo provoking Tybalt into a fight even though since he killed someone, he was going to be tried and put to death anyway. This shows how his decisions are very flawed since of his underdeveloped brain. In a TED Talk with Adrian Galván she says, , ”One of the first discoveries relevant to this topic was made when we discovered that the part of your brain in the very front, called the prefrontal cortex, which is the last brain region to develop, because your brain develops from the back to the front, continues to change up until the mid-20s. And the reason this is relevant is because the prefrontal cortex is a part of your brain that helps you think about the consequences or potential consequences of your actions before you do them.
Through the flaws in the characterization of his characters, Shakespeare allows their weakness to manipulate and cloud their judgment. This fundamentally leads to the outcome of Romeo and Juliet, with each weakness presenting a conflict that alters the characters fate. Being especially true with the star-crossed lovers, William Shakespeare leads their perfect love into tragedy with these conflicts. In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet, Friar Lawrence, and Tybalt all contribute to conflicts that enhance the plot. From destructive flaws in their characterizations, Juliet, Friar Lawrence, and Tybalt are all consequently controlled by their weakness, therefore affecting the outcome of the play.
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
In William Shakespeare’s most well-known play, “The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet”, Shakespeare illustrates an emotional tragedy by using through the behaviors of Romeo and Juliet’s behavior. Doomed upon falling in from love at first sight, the lives of two teenage lovers were eventually lost. Modern studies suggest that teenage behavior can be explained by is created due to the dramatic changes the brain undergoes at the age of adolescence. Since decision- making is vital in the teenage years, more options and opportunities tend to lead to better choices.
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare is often referred to as a classic love story. It is a story of love at first sight and fighting between families. The classic is a true tragedy because of the way it is created. Romeo and Juliet is an Aristotelian tragedy because it clearly follows the model shown by Aristotle. All aspects of the plot and characters perfectly follow way Aristotle defined. The plot follows the events that need to occur and the main characters have a flaw. Pity and fear is felt for the characters throughout the play. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare is a true Aristotelian tragedy because of the characters, plot, and the fact that it triggers pity and fear.
Is love worth it all? As publicized in Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, reckless decisions may possibly lead to an unforeseen and dreadful conclusion. He also makes it known that if feelings about a situation are over dramatized they can cause a hazardous faux pas. That is exactly what Romeo, Juliet, and Friar Lawrence implement in Shakespeare’s tragedy. In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the major characters cause the tragic outcome of the drama through their bad choices and decisions.
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.
Just as the Friar says in the beginning of the Shakespeare play, Romeo and Juliet, “Wisely and slowly, they stumble that run fast.” (II.iii.94). this was a sign of foreshadowing for for the death of the lovers, Romeo and Juliet. Even though fate was a factor that had contributed to a tragic end, there was also personal choice involved, and ultimately, the story may have had a different ending if it weren’t for the flaws of the lovers and their inability to have a grip on reality in dire circumstances. Over the course of the play, the lovers from the conflicting households have not matured and remain rather static in development. Furthermore, in this tragedy, the only son of the montages remains rather childlike, Juliet still seems immature and their relationship over all seems more like a play act on lover rather then something mature and sustainable. Overall, from start to finish, Romeo and Juliet were living in the moment, being absurd and silly rather then focusing on the future and trying to work problems out effectively.
A Psychological Analysis of Romeo and Juliet Romeo and Juliet was obviously not written to fit the psychoanalytic model, as the theories of Freud were not developed for centuries after Shakespeare. Shakespeare wrote about Renaissance England, a culture so heavily steeped in Christianity, that it would have blushed at the instinctual and sexual thrust of Freud’s theory. However, in order to keep literature alive and relevant, a culture must continually reinterpret the themes and ideas of past works. While contextual readings assure cultural precision, often these readings guarantee the death of a particular work. Homer’s Iliad, a monument among classical works, is currently not as renowned as Romeo and Juliet because it is so heavily dependent on its cultural context.