Romeo and Juliet Essay

Romeo and Juliet is complex, because of several reasons. First, the two protagonists are young and, as a consequence, their relationship has all the immaturity that comes with the age, as well as the need to dramatize everything, including the need to take drastic measures when things don't go the right way (which helps to explain why the two characters die in the end).

Second, they are members of two feuding families in Verona, which adds to the general complicated erotic scenario. Because of the feud, their relationship cannot develop in a normal manner, like the relationship between teenagers would otherwise. They need to hide, to plot in order to be able to meet and be together, to go against their families. Third, their relationship develops during a generally complicated time. The Renaissance is a period of rebirth for humanity, but the times have certain rules, particularly if one compares them with the present time. All these different dimensions feed into the relationship between Romeo and Juliet and affect their love.

In analyzing the relationship between Romeo and Juliet, one can start with discussing their age. Romeo is 16, with everything that comes with that age. In the beginning, Romeo is not in love with Juliet, but with Rosaline. This character never appears throughout the play, yet Romeo professes his love for her.

However, as throughout the play, his approach to love is influenced by his fleeting character, a result of his age. It appears that Rosaline is, in fact, just a pretext. The underlying reason (which he does not discover actually, because, as a teenager, he is not keen on introspection and does not go beyond the first reason to analyze more profound causes) is that he has not found true love.

Romeo's dialogue with Benvolio is a good reflection of Romeo's approach to love in the first part of the play. His description of Rosaline is vague and incomplete, mostly filled with generalities. There is also a sexual content, as Romeo expresses, in traditional 16th century manner (allusive, using metaphors rather than stating directly), his regret that Rosaline has taken a vow of chastity (Cooney, 1998).

Another interesting fact about Romeo in this part of the play, typical of teenagers, is that he refuses to act on his feelings for Rosaline. He does not approach her, he does not tell her, in any way, about his feelings. A possible explanation, related, again, to the fact that Romeo is a teenager, is that he lacks the confidence that adults usually have because of more experience and successes they had in life.

The fact that Rosaline is not, actually, the love of his life becomes clearer for Romeo when he first sees Juliet, using words such as "beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!." The reader sees Romeo moving away from the previous vagueness that characterized his descriptions of Rosaline and of his feelings for her. Romeo is also gradually moving away from his teenage tendency to objectify the person he is in love with. Juliet is not the object of his love interest, like Rosaline, her person and character goes beyond that threshold.

However, one needs to look again here at another characteristic of teenagers and their approach to life and love. Rosaline is immediately forgotten, there is no moment in Romeo's mind that he thinks about a comparison between Rosaline and Juliet. He simply moves to pursuing Juliet almost the moment he sees her and falls in love with her. Certainly, another explanation can be that Rosaline was not his true love, so there is no reason for such a comparison or for thinking twice about it, but this argument combines with the fact that, as a teenager, Romeo is still superficial in his love interest and in the way he pursues them.

It is the right moment in this paper to bring into discussion a theme that hangs in an overarching manner over the play: death, particularly in its suicidal form. Certainly, the play ends that way and its symbolism is important, but it is useful to point out that Romeo already has suicidal tendencies in the first part of the play, even before he meets Juliet (Peele, 2008). At a party he attends with his friends, he mentions that he wants to "expire the term of a despised life."

An analysis of suicidal tendencies in teenagers is a complicated matter, including in Romeo's case, particularly because it is always difficult to discern between a real threat and risk, caused by physiological or psychological factors, or an infatuated desire to bring attention to one. In the case of Romeo, one could rather argue for the latter, given the fact that he is with his friends, so he has the appropriate audience for his suicidal declarations.Juliet has similar suicidal tendencies or potential characteristics. Before analyzing these, it is useful to briefly discuss Juliet at this moment of the play (the moment of the party, when she meets Romeo). Juliet is 13 years old, younger than Romeo, but, given the faster development at girls, similar in terms of psychological stage. She has been promised for marriage to an older man, so she is likely to go through all the states that a teenager would go through in such a situation: despair, disgust, and, above all, a reaction adversary to the establishment, to the parents' decisions.

Suddenly, she sees a potential window of opportunity, a hope to escape the arranged marriage: Romeo. She sees him at the party and they kiss. She is not considering whether Romeo is in a relationship or marriage, but, she reasons, if he is, she will kill herself: "my grave is like to be my wedding bed." It is perhaps useful to emphasize again how the teenage attitude manifests itself: Juliet meets someone for the first time, falls immediately in love and promises to kill herself if he is already committed to another person. This looks like teenage approach at its best.

It is difficult, in the first half of the play, to discern between a male vs. female approach. When it comes to the suicidal tendencies, it appears that for Romeo, it is more of a "mal de vivre," boredom with life, a general unhappiness without a concrete cause-effect mechanism. With Juliet, it appears to be more concrete: she doesn't even threaten suicide because she is going to be pushed into an arranged marriage, she vows to kill herself only if Romeo is married. She appears to know very well what she wants, she is quite determined in this sense.

Both are impetuous when it comes to decision making. After the famous balcony scene, they decide to get married, after knowing each other for a night. In a typical teenage fashion, this seems like the best idea in the world, to the degree to which their enthusiasm also takes over Father Laurence, who sees their marriage as the answer to all problems in the city, particularly as a way to resolve the feud between the two families.

It is also interesting to note that the decision is not forced by either the male or the female half of the couple, but rather appears to come as a mutual decision, with both Romeo and Juliet arriving to the conclusion that this is the best approach to move forward. The couple does go through the traditional 16th century courting, but only in the beginning, because the fact that Romeo overhears Juliet cuts things short and speeds them up. By hearing her, he avoids a lengthy courtship process during which he would have used metaphors to allude to his love for Juliet, while Juliet would reject him several times.

One can naturally wonder whether the love would have subsequently developed during such a courtship. One of the characteristics that the male lover would have required was tenacity, the capacity to continue the courtship process, even if the odds were not initially favorable. However, this paper has already argued that teenage love operates on impulse, on immediateness, on the capacity to react based on enthusiasm. Teenage love is more of a blitzkrieg rather than the enduring trench war. It is debatable how far Romeo could carry the courtship process.

As always with teenage love, it is surprising how quickly love transforms from a superficial, fleeting relationship, to something that is not necessarily profound, but that unites and brings together so many energies. The last part of the play is eloquent in this sense. Romeo kills Tybalt and is banished from the city. He hears that Juliet is dead, which is obviously not true. He drinks poison and dies next to the sleeping Juliet, who kills herself when she wakes up and sees Romeo has died next to her.

So, this ending highlights, once again, the brash impulsiveness of teenage love. There is not a moment of judgment, not a second of analyzing consequences, of debating with one or with the other whether the….....