2Author's Apology: I will respond to PMs and review requests as soon as possible. In the meanwhile, please have this mighty sermon transcribed from me screaming for 4 hours about my favorite Shakespearean play.
The Enemies of Love
A common criticism of the play Romeo & Juliet is that the main theme, the idea that Romeo and Juliet's love could defeat such enemies such as hate and strife, is not realistic enough. Often readers — many of them barely children themselves — claim that they cannot buy into the theme that the love of two teenagers has that power. But if so, what was Shakespeare's point? Why tell a story of a romance if it is frail, fickle, futile? Why make two children, often blamed for their own deaths, into the heroes that brought peace to the most stubborn enemies? Why choose such a rushed love as the cause; why tie it with such mercurial forces such as fate if it was not real? Through the broad, potent spectrum of human emotion in Romeo & Juliet, it seems as if Shakespeare might be telling a different tale than what a jaded eye might catch from the surface. Perhaps this story is a lesson — that love is a force to never, ever take lightly.
In this play, love is portrayed as a force, a real power linked inextricably to hatred, fate and death. It is described as the "teacher of society" (Stauffer) — the enemy of strife which burned Verona to its foundations and rebuilt it in less than a week. What is the one thing that could, with five fallen bodies, destroy a hatred of such intensity that its birth is not even mentioned as a factor in its life? It is only the one, immortal love of Romeo and Juliet that stays constant, purposefully juxtaposed with the turbulent emotions that compose the rest of the play (Barber and Baggett). It's not a frail love. It's not petty. It is love, it is death, it is hatred, it is a passion that is so intrinsically rooted into the human nature that, with a single spark, it led a boy to forgive his worst enemies and leave one of their bodies in the dust within the same hour. "O brawling love. O loving hate" (I. i. 167).
"But," one might say, "they were just kids — they were probably just acting off hormones — what about Rosaline?" Yes, Rosaline. Take a look at her — except that is impossible. Rosaline is never shown onstage. She represents Romeo's understanding of love (Fleming), with quotations of the driest serenades and a parodied poetic scheme. The emotion displayed is his want for love, not love itself, and yet Romeo is criticized often for just being another dreamy-eyed child. Capulet thought similarly, dismissing Tybalt's anger at the party for naïve rage; thinking he can simply guide his daughter into the wedding bed of a man she doesn't want and that being a docile female youth, she would obey him. The other adult figures in the play are no different — Lady Capulet is frail and pliable, the Nurse impetuous and crude, Friar Lawrence a coward to the core. But look at thirteen-year-old Juliet. Who was the character to utter the most eloquent verse known to the English language? Juliet. Or look to Romeo. "Is love a tender thing?" (I. iv. 25) he once asked, only to answer himself as he uncovered the burial shroud of his wife. No, young Montague, it is not. It swept him and Juliet off their feet, but when it did, neither of them looked back. Just like a man. Just like a woman.
"But what about how Romeo and how he went straight from Rosaline to Juliet just by looking at her! You can't marry a girl you've just met!" No, you can't, not in real life. But this isn't real life. This is a play where actions are simply tugs on the puppetstrings by the master Fate, a concept the reader or watcher may not believe. This is a play where the subjects, two "star-crossed" lovers, are from the prologue tied to their doom — by none other than, again, fate (Webster). This is a play written by the same man who also wrote plays revolving around ghosts of dead fathers, around people with donkey heads, around women simply putting a hat over their hair and passing as men. Shakespeare's are not meant to be dismissed as silly and pointless because the viewer does not believe in ghosts or does not believe fate is real. But the idea of two kids finding true love, their soulmates, a love at first sight that actually is not centered around hormones and teenage stupidity? That would never happen.
True, Romeo & Juliet is a cautionary tale. But it is not directed in the way many think. This is a play about two young people who tampered with a force that healed a mortal wound between two families — wielding a force that is dangerous, faithful, and pure. This is a play about two martyrs who knew the ripples they would spread (could one really think Juliet killed herself not knowing her family would find her body in the arms of Romeo?), about two children who destroyed two families and raised them up again, hands intertwined, in a way that had never been seen before. This play is about the kids, sure. But is it honestly necessary to devalue the love of two young people as "just hormones", direct it towards kids just like them and tell them the lesson is to not follow your genitalia? Perhaps it was not written that way. Perhaps it was written to those who doubt the power of an unconditional, undying love. Perhaps it is for those who judge the strength of a person by their age, who think love is incomprehensible by anyone under twenty-five. Perhaps it's for anyone who isn't willing to accept that there are crazy things out there and that some of the craziest are found inside ourselves, within the hearts of the last people you would ever expect.
Works Cited
Barber, Jessica, and Baggett, McCaul. "Style of Romeo and Juliet." Style of Romeo & Juliet. Towson University, n.d. Web. 20 May 2015.
Fleming, William H. How to Study Shakespeare. New York: Doubleday and Co., 1898. Shakespeare Online. 10 Aug. 2010. 23 May 2015.
Stauffer, Donald A. "The School of Love: Romeo & Juliet". Shakespeare: the Tragedies. Ed. Alfred Harbage. 1st ed. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1964. 28.
Webster, Brooke. "Themes in Romeo and Juliet:." Romeo & Juliet: Family and Love. Towson University, n.d. Web. 18 May 2015.
P.S. I would not advise you, little cheater, to plagiarize this unless you are willing to die a martyr for turning in something like this. I was deducted five points for trying to defend a "controversial, inconstant opinion", called up and asked why I thought this way (which, having read the play 35 times and watched almost every single spinoff/interpretation, I was able to do and defend successfully), and also happen to know that TurnItIn, a very popular plagiarism checker, also scans sites like FictionPress. Source me? Maybe. If you can figure that out. Copy me...you are playing Russian Roulette with 4 chambers loaded.
Thank you.