Romeo and Juliet

Essay by jaredesselCollege, UndergraduateA+, March 2002

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Four hundred years ago, William Shakespeare wrote The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, a popular play that continues to capture the imagination and emotions of people around the world. The drama portrays the passionate, violent and often desperate lives of the youth of Verona. Even today, the tragedy resembles a blueprint of the problems that the adolescents of the twentieth century must face each day. In this play, Shakespeare explores the pitfalls of young love, and the consequences they receive from their actions. They explained their love to be true love and they knew that they had to be together, even though their families were enemies and it was truly forbidden for the two of them to marry. The whole idea of love in Romeo's and Juliet's thoughts was totally misunderstood, and they demonstrated in many sections of the play that they truly did not know what true love was.

In this play, Shakespeare shows that love can cause and finish anything, even love that is not honestly discovered. The influence of parents played a major part in the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. To start with, the general situation is rather like a family conflict. The feud between the Capulets and the Montagues had been passed down through the generations, until the youngest child had been planted with the seeds of hate. From the beginning of the play, it is learned that the Capulet's held the decisive judgement of what Juliet's future would have in store. "But saying o'er what I have said before. My child is yet a stranger in the world. She hath not seen the change of fourteen years. Let two more summers wither in their pride Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride." (I,ii,7-11) This demonstrates Capulet's intent of choosing Juliet's...