Romeo & JulietTheme of Love

Rebecca, Emma, Ellie and Anna

IntroductionWilliam Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is dark and disturbing that details the tragedy of forbidden love. The main concern is the theme of love which is portrayed clearly from the beginning of the play. Shakespeare utilises a multitude of characters to accomplish the different forms of love featured in the play. The success of this is developed as we begin to understand the characters through their actions in the play with regards to love.

Sampson & Gregory

• Initially, Shakespeare introduces the theme of love in Act One Scene One through the characters Sampson and Gregory. Their crude language and bawdy attitudes towards love and women shows their immaturity and lack of respect:

• “Tis true, and therefore women being the weaker vessels are ever thrust into the wall: therefore I will push Montague’s men from the wall, and thrust his maids to the wall.”

• This conveys their immaturity, and objectified view of women. It also shows their bitter attitudes towards the Montague household, and that they are involved in the fierce rivalry between the two households and their willingness to defend the head of their household, despite the tragic consequences.

The NurseShakespeare uses the nurse to convey another form of love through the use of coarse language which describes her view on love:

“Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age”

“Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.”

The nurse is seen as Juliet’s surrogate mother as her own mother feels she cannot talk to Juliet in the same humorous way the nurse can. The nurse genuinely cares for Juliet as if she was her own daughter, and wants her to be happy. Her mother wants her relationship to involve money and status but the nurse wants Juliet to have a fulfilling relationship, and to have that, a physical side must be involved.

Romeo & Rosaline At the beginning of the play Romeo amplifies his love for Rosaline and unrequited love. He ‘loves’ her but to her, he does not exist or play any part in her life. Romeo appears to be overly dramatic about this situation:

“O brawling love, O loving hate, O anything of nothing first create! O heavy lightness, serious vanity.”

This is very flowery and overly dramatic language which is very poetic, suggesting that Romeo takes his elaborate imagery from love poems. His reliance on her love portrays him as needy and we can see that her rejection of him has badly effected him. Romeo’s reaction reminds us of a whining child and we can see his immaturity through this. His quickness to later move on from Rosaline to Juliet shows he’s fickle and that he has little experience for actual love. It is clear that Romeo desires Rosaline purely for physical reasons;

“Nor ope her lap to saint seducing gold”

This suggests that Romeo’s motives may not be as pure as they seem and we can see he has confused lust and desire for true love and emotional connection. Romeo is the embodiment of teenage angst and lust. His dramatic reaction suggests he is not used to rejection and is unsatisfied with Rosaline’s decision to keep her chastity.

MercutioJust as the nurse has a somewhat smutty view of love, so does Mercutio:

“If love be rough with you, be rough with love”

“ By her fine foot, straight leg, and quivering thigh”

Mercutio is a typical teenage boy, not really seeing girls as people, but as objects of pleasure and objectification. Like Romeo, he is inexperienced but far less dramatic and romantic. He is a comical character until his untimely death, where we see how he combines gallows humour with anger and aggression towards both houses.

Romeo & JulietUnlike his love for Rosaline, Romeo’s love for Juliet is impulsive and intense:

“Did my heart love til now? For swear it, sight!For I ne’er saw true beauty til this night”

“So Romeo would were he not Romeo called retain that dear perfection which he owes without that title”

This conveys that Romeo and Juliet are devastated by the news that their fate has determined them to be forbidden to love each other. Romeo is clearly in love with Juliet and continue to use religious imagery to portray his love for her throughout the play. Juliet subtly leads the relationship by telling Romeo to kiss her instead of kissing him. Romeo and Juliet are quick to advance their relationship in a short space of time and this impulsiveness is emphasized by the destruction they cause for their love which is foreshadowed in the play.

Conclusion• Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare is a tragedy about forbidden love and

the dire consequences it can have. It describes the different forms love can take and this is seen through the portrayal of different characters. It shows the extremities of love and the lengths people will go to for true love which can be seen through Romeo and Juliet tragic suicides at the end of the play.