Romeo And Juliet Essay, Research Paper

“Romeo and Juliet:” Star-Crossed Lovers?

After reading Shakespeare?s “Romeo and Juliet” I noticed something that everybody must had noticed: their immaturity. Romeo and Juliet see each other and instantly fall in love. The next day they get married and two days after that they die for each other. I think that nobody is capable of doing such thing for someone you have less than a weeek of knowing. The haste of this play is what shocked me the most. I really don?t know what Shakespeare was trying to transmit through it. Maybe he was warning people so they could take decissions more calmly, or maybe he was trying to critizice the youth of that time. What I do know about “Romeo and Juliet” is that they were not really in love, and that fate didn’t play a big role in their lives.

The main purpose of this paper is to explain why weren’t Romeo and Juliet in love. I believe that love is something very easy to feel, but once you feel it it turns complicated. What I know for sure is that nobody can fall in love just by seeing someone. It could be called love at first sight by many, but I don’t believe in that. That is called physical attraction. Love something that grows inside with time. If Romeo and Juliet had lived on and get to know each other well, what could be the odds of them staying together? Nobody can love someone else if they don’t really know each other. Sometimes what we feel at first is not real, because feelings can trick us. Lucy Kavaler, a member of the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, pointed out the next passage:

“Soldiers were required to exercise in heat of 103 degrees at high humidity, which caused a rise in body temperature. They were allowed to rest for a while and then, still overheated, were asked to detect light signals flashed in a random manner. A second group of men exercised at 75 degrees. More light flashes were reported by the men who were hotter, which at first seemed to indicate that this state increased their alertness and competence. But when their detection reports were compared with the number of true signals, it was found that the increase was in false reports. Their judgment was not as sound as that of cooler men. They had become more willing to take a risk and insist that they saw a signal when in fact there was none.”

This is a clear example of how people take decisions without knowing what they are really doing and without thinking of the consequences. Romeo and Juliet didn’t know what a big responsibility marriage was, and especially between their families.

So, if they were not in love, what could possibly be the cause why they went through all of this? Maybe it was just rebelliousness. Immediately after they saw each other they were informed that they were from enemy families. But that didn’t stop them. Probably it made everything more interesting, they were playing with fire, they knew it and they liked it. That was not smart thinking. Also they could have been trying to unite both families together, but if that was the case, Romeo messed it up when he confronted Tybalt. Also the participation of Friar Lawrence and the Nurse was absurd. I believe they were old enough to know that all this was only a child’s game. How could they possibly support these two kids in taking such a dangerous decision? It sounds illogical to me.

Another important point to consider is the role that fate plays throughout the story. People say that Romeo and Juliet were meant for each other because it was their destiny to be together. Also, both Romeo and Juliet believed that. Romeo says during one of his monologues that he was “fortune’s fool” (III. 1. 141). But for me, there is no fate written on anyone. Life is not a train that forces us to follow the tracks no matter where we want to go. Instead, it is like a spaceship floating in outer space and we are the pilots. We decide what we want to do with our lives, and clearly Romeo and Juliet took the wrong decision because of their fake feelings.

So in conclusion, I believe that everybody falls in love at some point of their lives and find the right person to spend their lives with. Romeo and Juliet were not made for each other because they didn’t know each other that well to determine that. I believe that there is nothing outstanding about this play, only the foolish way of acting of these two youngsters amazes me.

Bibliography

Moore, Roger and Charmaine Cordero. “Romeo and Juliet”. [online]. “last updated 1 September 2000″ [cited 13 May 2000]. Available from World Wide Web: URL: http://www.allshakespeare.com.

Walters, Scott. “Consumed by Fire.” Illinois Shakespeare Festival 2001. Access Date: November 20th, 2000. http://www.orat.ilstu.edu/shakespeare/research/ISFromeo.html

Shakespeare, William. “Romeo and Juliet.” The Complete Oxford Shakespeare. Vol. III. Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor eds. London: Oxford University Press, 1987. 1053 – 1088