Romeo And Juliet Love vs Hate Essay Sample

Few literary works are as well known as Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare’s pièce de résistance.  A tale of many themes, love and hate, violence and grief, Shakespeare built a deeply emotional story upon these values.  These themes are evident throughout Shakespeare’s works, but are seen more in Romeo and Juliet than any other.  What are the themes woven throughout this tragic play, and how do they reveal themselves?

Romeo and Juliet is synonymous with love, the first theme.  This idea is evident throughout the play, from Romeo’s posse of friends to Romeo and Juliet themselves.  From the beginning of the play, Romeo has 2 close friends, Benvolio and Mercutio.  These friends, also cousins, protect and care for each other, and in the case of Mercutio, die for the others (Act 3, Scene 1).  The despair and rage felt by Romeo at Mercutio’s death is evidence of this bond.  However, the most obvious examples of love in Romeo and Juliet are the protagonists themselves, Romeo and Juliet.  The cornerstone of the work, the relationship between the couple, produces many bold acts; their secret meetings and marriage (Act 2 Scene 5), for example, and the long-winded soliloquies (Act 1 Scene 5, Act 2 Scene 2) seen throughout the play.  Every aspect of the play is built around the love of Romeo and Juliet, from acts 1 to 5, and they make up the main theme of the work.

In sharp contrast to the first theme, hate is prevalent throughout the play as well.  The hatred felt between the feuding families, the Montagues and Capulets, is a central theme of the play, and is responsible for nearly every tragedy in it.  The animosity held against each other led the families to forbid Romeo and Juliet from marrying, a decree secretly defied by the principal characters.  The rivalries between the young members of these families lead to violence, and often death (Act 3 Scene 1).  Juliet’s relationship with Romeo, a Montague, ignites her father’s hatred of the house of Montague, leading him to threaten to kick his daughter out of the house of Capulet if she doesn’t end their relationship (Act 3 Scene 5).  Hate is a key theme in Romeo and Juliet, and it is built upon by many events and other themes throughout Shakespeare’s work.

Often coming hand-in-hand with hate, violence is yet another theme that appears in the tragedy.  Duels, murder, and scuicides are littered throughout Romeo and Juliet, and are a primary driver of the plot.  The 3 duels featured in the tale each end in death, first the aforementioned Mercutio (Act 3 Scene 5), his killer Tybalt (Act 3 Scene 5), and last, Count Paris, Juliet’s courter and Romeo’s rival (Act 5 Scene 3).  Mercutio’s death was accidental, as he came between Tybalt and Romeo during their duel.  In retaliation, Romeo followed Tybalt, finished their fight, and slew him in similar fashion to Mercutio.  Last, Paris, believing Juliet was dead as a result of her relationship with Romeo, challenged him to a duel, an ill-advised decision that ended in his own death.  Two suicides take place in the play, as well, Romeo's and Juliet’s.  Romeo, believing Juliet dead, as did Paris, was so struck with grief at the sight of his sleeping wife, drank a vial of cyanide brought to her tomb for that reason, ending his life.  Juliet awoke from her spell-induced death-like state to the sight of her dead Romeo.  Upon seeing her husband in this state, Juliet took his dagger and stabbed herself through the heart, killing herself (Act 5 Scene 3).  This effectively brought an end to the cycle of violence seen throughout the play, by causing the Montagues and Capulets to reconsider their ancient feud and bring it to an end (Act 5 Scene 3).  Violence and bloodshed of many varieties impact Shakespeare’s work bigly, and are a crucial feature of it.

The relationship between Romeo and Juliet requires and causes rebellion, our next theme.  From defying the patriarchs of the feuding families, to running from commitments to others, cases of characters defying authority and the status-quo are all over the story.  The obvious examples are, again, seen in the relationship between Romeo and Juliet.  Despite Romeo’s engagement to Rosaline, he pursues Juliet, leaving his bride-to-be behind.  Both Romeo and Juliet’s families forbade them from seeing each other, an order neither character would heed (Act 3 Scene 5).  Romeo, after slaying Tybalt, was banished from Verona. However, he stayed in hiding within the town, to continue seeing Juliet. In direct defiance of both houses in Verona (Act 2, Scene 3), Friar Laurence, a dear friend of Romeo’s, wed Juliet and Romeo.  Though Juliet tells her father she will marry Paris (Act 4 Scene 2), she has no intentions of doing so, and she has an ill-advised plan to get out of that engagement.  From defying family chiefs to secret weddings, Shakespeare employs rebellion against the powers-that-be to better craft this tragic story.  

Yet another theme seen throughout Romeo and Juliet is sorrow.  In the first scene, we see Romeo lamenting his unrequited love for Rosaline (Act 1 Scene 1), a sadness he leaves behind upon seeing Juliet (Act 1 Scene 5).  The unfortunate love between Romeo and Juliet is the root of most of the other tragedies in the play.  The duel, instigated by Tybalt and finished by Romeo (Act 3 Scene 1), causes grief for both families, the Capulets for Tybalt, and the Montagues for Mercutio, as well as for Romeo’s banishment.  With Romeo out of the way, Lord Capulet sets Juliet up with County Paris, a count of the house of Escalus.  However, Juliet’s devotion to Romeo forbade her from marrying Paris.  She, along with Friar Laurence, devises a plan to fake her death and run away with Romeo afterwards (Act 4 Scene 5) .  The good Friar is unable to inform Romeo of the plot, and all Romeo hears is the news of his dead wife (Act 5 Scene 2).  Romeo is forlorn, and carries his sword, a dagger, and a small vial of poison with him to retrieve his wife’s wedding band, and kill himself by her side.  Romeo arrives at her tomb, and is confronted by Paris, who thinks Romeo has come to desecrate the bodies of the Capulets.  They duel, ending with Paris’ death (2-0, way to go, Romeo).  Romeo cracks open her tomb, retrieves the ring, and drinks his poison, ending his life.  Juliet awakes next to her dead husband, and thrusts his dagger into her heart (Act 5 Scene 3).  This double scuicide sends both families into dejected grief (Act 5 Scene 3), and causes them to set aside their pride and mend relations between them, breaking their tradition of feuding and violence.  The violence the families vowed to end is largely the source of the grief seen in this work of Shakespeare’s.

The last themes seen in Romeo and Juliet are pride and honour, which are seen throughout every act of the play.  Beginning at the beginning of the beginning act, the family pride and honour felt by the Capulets and Montegues drive their ancient feud forward.  This pride is seen best in the duels between the young members of the families.  Instigated first by Tybalt, the duel between him and Romeo ends in the aforementioned accidental death of Mercutio (an incident containing many themes mentioned in this essay).  Romeo, grieved by the death of his sworn ally and cousin, gets revenge on Tybalt in the name of preserving Mercutio’s honour (Act 3 Scene 1).  Family pride trickles down to the families’ servants, and at the Capulet banquet, the servants of Capulet and Montegue are seen bickering over which house is superior, and even threatening violence against the other (Act 1 Scene 5).  This sense of honour and pride is seen more in the patriarchs of the families than in any other characters.  Lord Monague fiercely defended his son, Romeo, after his slaying of Tybalt, and had no love for the House of Capulet (Act 1 Scene 1, Act 3 Scene 1).  Lord Capulet, Juliet’s father, is much more vocal with his superiority complex.  Rather than have Juliet marry a Montague, Capulet threatens to disown his daughter if she goes through with the wedding (Act 3 Scene 5).  Romeo even laments Juliet’s house, calling the House of Capulet his "foe" (Act 1 scene 4).  This pride and honour held by both families in Verona is the primary source of the violence, hate, grief, and strife in Romeo and Juliet, and is the engine of the play.

From violence and grief to love and pride, Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare’s piece de resistance, is built upon numerous universal themes, tying the play together, and to the real-world.  Beginning with the first sight, Romeo’s love for Juliet, and hers for him, ends up costing both their lives, and is the central facet of the play.  Causing death, grief, joy, and scandal, this love initially rips families apart, but ends in the uniting of 2 warring families, a unity constructed around the values and themes employed by Shakespeare.