ThEmEs ThEmEs Loe
Romeo and Juliet is a fascinating exploration of what love means. The characters in the play offer different views of what love is: – Romeo (at the start of the play) shows the pain of unrequited love. – Friar Laurence presents love as a way of creating peace and harmony in society. – The Nurse and Mercutio focus on the physical aspects of love. – Capulet and Lady Capulet present love and marriage as a means of obtaining social advancement.
– Romeo and Juliet offer a vision of impassioned, young love.
UnReQuItEd LoVe (UnReTuRnEd LoVe) Romeo’s declared love for Rosaline at the start of the play displays how consuming unrequited love can be. Although Romeo’s parents do not realise that he is lovesick, they remark how he has become broody and isolated, ‘private in his chamber pens himself, / Shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out / And makes himself an artificial night.’ We can see the power of Romeo’s infatuation as he testifies to Rosaline’s beauty: ‘The all- seeing sun / Ne’er saw her match since first the world begun.’ The only reason he agrees to attend the Capulet’s masked ball is to revel in Rosaline’s ‘splendour’. Romeo himself recognises how his supposed love for Rosaline is causing him great misery.
He is infatuated by Rosaline but she doesn’t feel the same way. Romeo expresses his confusion and upset through a series of oxymorons (contradictions) as he tries to reconcile his powerful infatuation with his feelings of rejection: ‘O heavy lightness, serious vanity, Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms! / Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health, / Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!’ Later in the play, as the Montagues prepare to go to Capulet’s masked ball, Romeo appears sullen and miserable next to the other high-spirited young men. He complains to Mercutio, ‘You have dancing shoes / With nimble soles. I have a soul of lead / So stakes me to the ground I cannot move’ and presents love as a source of great pain, ‘Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, / Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.’ However, Romeo’s infatuation for Rosaline is not genuine love. This is apparent by how
quickly Romeo forgets her. When Friar Laurence asks Romeo was he with Rosaline on the night of the masked ball, Romeo’s dismissive response illustrates how he has moved on: ‘With Rosaline, my ghostly father? No. / I have forgot that name, and that name’s woe.’ Friar Laurence is quick to point out how fickle Romeo is in matters of the heart: ‘Young men’s love then lies / Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.’ However, Friar Laurence is yet to appreciate the intensity of Romeo’s feelings for Juliet.
LoVe AnD SoCiAl HaRmOnY When Friar Laurence first learns of Romeo’s love for Juliet, he remarks on how quickly Romeo moves from one love to the next. However, he feels compelled to marry the lovers as he believes their love can help to unite the feuding families and end the social unrest: ‘In one respect I’ll thy assistant be: / For this alliance may so happy prove, / To turn your households’ rancour to pure love.’ Friar Laurence’s hope that the Capulets and Montagues end their ‘ancient grudge’ does eventually happen. However, the bloodshed that occurs is not something he could have predicted. The final moments of the play show Capulet extend the hand of friendship to Montague. As a symbol of reconciliation, both men promise to erect gold statues in honour of the other’s child. In the end it is Romeo and Juliet’s love for each other that ends the bitter
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