The Theme of Love in Acts One and Five

The theme of love is conveyed in acts 1 and 5 in many ways and in many characters. The theme of love keeps the audience interested because it is set within the context of feud. There are many different forms of love and Shakespeare incorporates many of them into his "Romeo and Juliet" play. In " Romeo and Juliet" Shakespeare brings out the cruel superficial love Romeo has for Rosaline, the bawdy, physical, and sexual love that Shakespeare expressed through Nurse and Mercutio, the contractual love Paris has for Juliet, the compassionate, paternal, and caring love Capulet has for Juliet , and finally the spiritual emotional and true love Romeo and Juliet have for each other.

The prologue is in the form of a sonnet, this is a short poem with fourteen lines. A prologue is a brief indication of the nature of the story. It is split into four quatrains. The first quatrain is rhymed ABAB, the second quatrain is rhymed CDCD, the third is rhymed EFEF and the final couplet is rhymed GG. The quatrain tells us information about the play. The first quatrain tells the audience that the scene is set in Verona, and that there is an ancient feud between two families – the Capulet’s and the Montague’s. The second quatrain tells us that the feud is ended and the two families reconciled on after the death of Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet. “A pair of star-cross’d lovers.”In the third quatrain we are told that the story of this is conflict and ends in a tragic way. The final two lines ask for the audience to pay attention. It is significant that the prologue is written in a sonnet form as it is telling the audience that the nature of the story will be based around the theme of love.

Act 1

In act 1 the play starts like a comedy, with word play ...

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...breath. Romeo does not realise that the colour is returning to her lips and cheeks because she is about to wake up and thinks instead that ‘death is amorous’ and keeps her ever-beautiful in the tomb to be his lover. Romeo drinks the poison and dies. A few lines later Juliet awakes and asks for him by name. Juliet cannot find a ‘friendly’ drop of poison in Romeos hand. Instead she pulls the dagger out and kills herself to be with her one and true love.

At the end of the play Capulet asks for Montague’s hand in peace. The families agree. They decide to end the feud based on the fact that their children love each other. The families decide together to lay their children next to each other, by a statue of gold. ‘For I will raise her statue in pure gold’ Montague says he will put up a statue of Juliet because she was his sons wife and he wants to honour his son’s wife.