William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

The first thoughts that come into most people's minds when they think

of Romeo and Juliet are thoughts of love and romance. This is in fact

not true. The plot does contain quite a lot of elements of love and

romance, but the predominant theme is definitely asking questions

about one's responsibility and irresponsibility.

The first thing to note is that Romeo and Juliet are not really in

love. He falls in love with her at first sight, but surely this is not

true love: probably just a crush, or infatuation. Romeo is not the

romantic character that he is made out to be by people having not

analyzed the text .their relation, whether it be love or not, was

certainly not something to die for. In fact, taking their own lives

was the most foolish decision made in the story.

Shakespeare deliberately foregrounds the speed at which all the events

of the play unfold (five days in total) to show the reader (or

spectator) the incredible irresponsibility of the characters: the

first day two young people fall in love, the next day they are

married, and four days later they have both killed themselves: surely

something went wrong!

First, let us define irresponsibility. People take irresponsible

actions when they do not think properly or in enough detail. They

decide things off the top of their heads and often these decisions are

the wrong ones.

Almost every character in the play is there to show their

irresponsible behaviour. For example, Friar Lawrence.

At first, Friar Lawrence is shown to be the backbone of the city of

Verona, and to be wise and good. When Romeo first talks to him, he

criticizes him about his love life. When it comes to Romeo asking him

to marry him and Juliet, he is first surprised but then decides to

"act the hero": he thinks that by doing this he would be the one to

bring the two rival families together! This is obviously very

irresponsible.

Another example is Juliet's nurse: she is supposed to be a mature