...Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet features two main characters from feuding families who fall in love but feel adversely about their developing romance despite their mutual attraction. Romeo wants to be in a relationship with Juliet and acts rashly because he believes it will help him to do so. Adversely, Juliet acts with caution and thinks more about possible long-term consequences of a relationship with Romeo. Their differing approaches to their relationship reflect restrictive social standards for women, and ultimately prove that women must act more carefully when it comes to love because a woman would face greater consequences than a man if they were to break social codes. Juliet proceeds more with more discretion than Romeo when...
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...Analysis of the Function of Speed in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet is an avalanche. As a loose pebble in the snowcapped mountain wobbles in the wind, Romeo yodels to Juliet in the cliffs just to send it tumbling, lightly, down a vertical abyss. It does not end there, of course, for this pebble held back the rocks and boulders constituting the height of the peak, and the reaction now begins as each individual stone rolls with momentum. They pick up speed and snow, growing in velocity and size until the inevitable occurs and Romeo and Juliet are engulfed in the upheaval and finished forever. William Shakespeare’s version of the play Romeo and Juliet, taken from Arthur Brooke’s play similarly titled Romeus and Juliet, is a fast paced tragedy in which a boy and girl from two feuding families meet, fall in love, bond in matrimony, and commit suicide in a matter of four days. Compared to the nine-month romance that takes place in Brooke’s play, Shakespeare’s version is a consciously hastened piece of work during which the most significant parts of a young couple’s lives begin and end in less than one week. Speed, a well-utilized literary tool in Shakespeare’s play, serves to emphasize emotion, as opposed to reason, in the characters’ decisions. Through this device, Shakespeare demonstrates his skills as a playwright by showing control of time in the play. Perhaps the most well known episode in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the balcony scene is a prime example...
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...characterization in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare uses metaphors and details through the characterization of Paris, Juliet, and Romeo in order to reveal the theme of how love is an addiction, it is an obsession and people make quick decisions without thinking because of love. Shakespeare incorporates many characters in his play in order to portray how love is so overpowering that it causes the characters apathy towards life to incline. For example, during act 5 scene 3, Paris is at Juliet’s grave morning when Romeo approaches and Paris says, “Nightly shall be to strew they grave and weep” (1136). This image invokes the idea that Paris is dismayed and feels depressed. Paris engages...
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...eternal and universal. William Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is one such text that uses the play form to address the impact of emotions overruling people’s thoughts and decisions. Shakespeare, demonstrating how their love is destroyed by the irrational hatred created by society, explores the impetuous and romantic love of Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare examines the complexity of love and the inevitability of fate through the ingenious use of literary and dramatic techniques. Love is a convoluted emotion that sparks intense feelings of passion. The understanding of the emotion, its causes and consequences is timelessly relevant. The obsessive nature of love is...
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...Romeo and Juliet Analysis Two star-crossed lovers end up dead in less than a week. In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Romeo and Juliet meet at a party. They fall in love right there on the spot. Over the next few days they act without thinking. After their death, the two families who were at war, finally come to peace. Romeo and Juliet could not have done it without their help. The nurse encourages their love from the moment she meets Romeo. The Friar knows what he is doing is wrong, but does not attempt to stop the two. Friar Lawrence and the Nurse should be punished for letting tow immature teenagers do as they wish. Juliet’s nurse and Friar Lawrence both are at fault for the death of the two lovers The Nurse just wants the best for Juliet...
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...A TEACHER’S GUIDE TO THE SIGNET CLASSIC EDITION OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S ROMEO AND JULIET By ARTHEA J.S. REED, PH.D. S E R I E S W. GEIGER ELLIS, ED.D., E D I T O R S : UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA, EMERITUS and ARTHEA J. S. REED, PH.D., UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA, RETIRED A Teacher’s Guide to the Signet Classic Edition of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet 2 INTRODUCTION William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is an excellent introduction to Shakespearean drama; teenagers can relate to its plot, characters, and themes. The play’s action is easily understood, the character’s motives are clear, and many of the themes are as current today as they were in Shakespeare’s time. Therefore, it can be read on a variety of levels, allowing all students to enjoy it. Less able readers can experience the swash-buckling action and investigate the themes of parent-child conflict, sexuality, friendship, and suicide. Because of the play’s accessibility to teenagers, able readers can view the play from a more literary perspective, examining the themes of hostility ad its effect on the innocent, the use of deception and its consequences, and the effects of faulty decision making. They can study how the characters function within the drama and how Shakespeare uses language to develop plot, characters, and themes. The most able students can develop skills involved in literary criticism by delving into the play’s comic and tragic elements and its classically...
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...believe it is the right choice. Who is the adult and who is the teenager? While William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet suggests that teenagers in the 1600s made impulsive decisions, many teenagers today still struggle with that issue. Shakespeare’s...
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...University Tandag City, Surigao del Sur In Partial Fulfilment Of the requirement for the Degree Bachelor of Arts in Filipino JACKIELYN P. ALMEDILLA ROCHELLE I. CASSANO Literary Theme : Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare Analysis written by Jordan Ward Submitted By : RUBYLYN E. BALDOVINO BA- Filipino 2 Submitted To : SOL VERTUDAZO The Downfall of Romeo and Juliet In the Play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, he writes about two young adults who have fallen madly in love, Romeo and Juliet. They are from two very different families who are bitter rivals, the Capulets and the Montagues. In the play, it shows and depicts the problems that arise when they fall in love, and how their impatience in important events leads to the downfall of their marriage in the end. Romeo and Juliet are to blame for all the misfortune experienced in this book, due to the impatience and stubbornness of each; Shakespeare created this to show how important patience is during crucial events. Because of their impatience, their marriage is torn apart, and both end up dead as the play comes to a close. Romeo and Juliet sealed their own fate, and are the only ones to blame for all the misfortune they experienced during the play. The first major problem Romeo and Juliet create for themselves is rushing their marriage, and trying to keep it a secret. If they had waited even a couple of more days and talked to their families about it, they might have had better success...
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...one of William Shakespeare’s plays entitled, Romeo and Juliet demonstrated the impact hatred has on the people it surrounds. Romeo and Juliet is a play set in Verona, Italy in which two people, infatuated with each other, venture to extreme lengths to complete their desires in opposition to the venom held between their families, conclusively leading to their demise. This feeling of detest blinds entities from morality and influences them to commit regrettable mistakes, much present in modern society through...
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...swoon as they read Romeo and Juliet for the first time. The girls wish for a boy like Romeo to spot them in a crowded room and instantly fall in love, and even though they would never admit it, young men probably wish for the same. Even the students who scoff at Romeo’s flowery language and the dramatic irony secretly wish for the kind of overwhelming passion Romeo and Juliet share. However, the same students tend to overlook the warning Shakespeare has within the first page of the play. In the prologue, Shakespeare writes that Romeo and Juliet tells the tale of two families with such an intense hatred toward each other that it takes a child from each of the families committing suicide for the...
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...Shakespeare’s portrayal of actions and their consequences “Sooner or later everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences.” -Robert Louis Stevenson. Stevenson, a novelist and poet, explains that everyone commits regrettable actions and eventually always have to face the consequences that comes along with it. This belief is portrayed in William Shakespeare’s work, Romeo and Juliet, a tragic play that presents two youths, Juliet Capulet and Romeo Montague, that met and fell in love at first sight. However, they are forced to keep their relationship a secret for their families, the Capulets and Montagues are bitter enemies. Because of this secrecy, misunderstandings arise and reckless decisions, along with their irreversible consequences, are...
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...English Essay- Evolution of Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare’s well-known play, Romeo and Juliet addresses the ill-fated love of two young children from feuding households set in Verona. Even though they are both children and Juliet is younger than Romeo, they both mature at different rates and ways. In addition, they are very different characters. Romeo is withdrawn, whereas Juliet is bold and brave. The differences go on and are made more obvious as the play progresses. This essay will highlight these differences and how they evolve as characters through the course of this play. Both the characters strike us as very different when we meet them for the first time. Romeo is recovering from his unrequited love. He is shown to be pining with love for a woman called Rosaline. He seems very immature in the beginning as he loses track of time and he stays in a dark room throughout the day due to his love-sickness. The play's emphasis on characters' eyes and the act of looking accords with Romeo's role as a blind lover who doesn't believe that there could be another lady more fair than his Rosaline. Romeo denies that he could be deluded by love, the "religion" of his eye. This zeal, combined with his rejection of Benvolio's advice to find another love to replace Rosaline, highlights Romeo's immaturity as a lover. We immediately feel as though his feelings are not real love, it is more of a infatuation. Romeo is in love with the concept of being in love. Juliet on the other hand is more...
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...can lead to fatal consequences. In Shakespeare's timeless tale Romeo and Juliet, there are two households divided over a feud. The two star-crossed are Juliet from the Capulets, and Romeo from the house of Montague. At the beginning of the play, Romeo is lovesick over a requited love and is advised to look upon other beauties. In the Capulet household Juliet is already set to marry Count Paris and is preparing for the Capulet ball. Romeo and Juliet eventually meet and instantly fall in love without knowing the other’s true identity. This love soon leads them to rush into a marriage along with some help from Romeo’s friend Friar Laurence. Shakespeare uses the motif of sight and blindness to illustrate Romeo’s flaws, which lead to his downfall. In Shakespeare's play Romeo’s major flaw is that he is impulsive and makes quick decisions based off his instinct. This is shown at the beginning of the play when Romeo is in love Rosaline. He quickly changes his mind when he catches a glimpse of Juliet claiming “Did my heart love till now? forswear it sight!”(I, v, 50). He instantaneously forgets about Rosaline and when Friar Laurence inquiries where he was, he states “With Rosaline, my ghostly father? No. I...
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...Romeo and Juliet One of Shakespeare's most popular plays, Romeo and Juliet centers on the ill-fated love between the adolescent offspring of two leading, but warring, families of medieval Verona. Because of the feud between the families and the dictates of the day, which gave Juliet's father the right to promise her in marriage to any man of his choice, Romeo and Juliet's secret marriage is destined to bring tragedy both to the couple and to their families. Although critics disagree over the nature of the young couple's love for each other, most concur that themes of love and sexuality are central to the play's meaning. Scholars have focused on issues such as the nature and extent of Romeo and Juliet's love for each other, the social dictates and consequences of sexuality in medieval times, and the passage of the title characters from childhood to adulthood. Many commentators have examined the nature of Romeo and Juliet's love for one another, concentrating on its brevity and the extent to which it was lustful. Ronald B. Bond states that Romeo's love for Juliet is ocular and is based only on satisfying his senses. Bond claims that even in death their love is "devoted to the flesh" and that the play is about "the intensity of youthful love." However, Marjorie Kolb Cox distinguishes between the Nurse's interpretation of the romance in terms of lust and Juliet's stress on abiding love, maintaining that Romeo and Juliet's love does not fit the Elizabethan Courtly Love model...
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...with a man that is so impulsive and loving that he falls in love with a girl only minutes after swooning over another? You banish him; because he ends up impulsively taking revenge on he who murders his best friend. In William Shakespeare's play, Romeo and Juliet, the main characters Romeo Montague is in love with Rosaline, who is sworn from marriage, but then he and Juliet Capulet meet, fall in love, and secretly elope despite being from feuding families; Romeo is soon after banished from the city of Verona, and Juliet is betrothed to another man, Count Paris. In order to stay faithful to Romeo, Juliet fakes her death the night before the wedding; but when Romeo hears of this news, he believes it to be true and decides he cannot live without his Juliet. He then commits suicide by poison lying next to Juliet, leaving Juliet to wake up and find Romeo dead beside her after which she brings unto herself the same fate as him, using Romeo’s knife to commit suicide. Romeo proves to...
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