The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet
The Tragedy of Romeo and JulietThe Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet
In the Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, Romeo lives in a world “From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean”, and where prejudice actions literally lead to human destruction.
This play was not only one of a love tragedy, but one of human life and morals. From start to finish Shakespeare makes the audience feel for the characters, as though they were part of our own world, and as though we had known them our whole lives. Act III Scene I in which Mercutio is slain by Tybalt is a perfect example of how Shakespeare makes us feel the agony that Mercutio must have felt as he lie on his death bed and say to Romeo “a plague o’ both your houses!” In my opinion that line is the most important line in the play, for the simple reason that it stresses the fact that not only Montagues and Capulets are effected by the childish feud but the city, the innocent people, and the friends of both families.
The only person close to both families and had no grudge toward either household was the Friar Lawrence. Friar Lawrence could see the true love in Romeo and Juliet and was the only man who was willing to help them be together. He agrees to marry Romeo and Juliet with the theory that their love would reverse the evil hatred between the feuding families, without the tragedy of death, but his plan was to backfire.
“From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, a pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life”. Of all the scenes, Act V, Scene III was the most emotional to me just as I think Shakespeare had planned. In this scene Shakespeare makes the characters so real that the reader feels the grief in which Romeo felt as he stared at his beloved, lying there, quiet… still… dead. His grief was so much that he took his own life in some small hope that he would, in return, meet his fair Juliet in the afterlife. When Juliet awakes she says to the friar “Where is my lord? I do remember well where I should be, and there I am. Where is my Romeo?” At the moment Juliet says this to the friar, I started getting chills and I felt the pain that Juliet was about to endure. Then as Juliet snatches Romeos dagger and Punctures herself with it, I feel a sigh of relief in knowing that the two may finally be together.
The true tragedy is that the two lovers had to die in order to bring the two families together and stop the feuding between households.