Romeo An Juliet Essay, Research Paper

Romeo and Juliet

by William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, one of the most famous and acclaimed plays of William Shakespeare, recounts the romance of a couple whose lives destiny would at the end head towards tragedy. This play takes place in Verona in the late 1500’s. The play deals mostly with the fact that Romeo couldn’t be with Juliet since their families were such big rivals. However, though all of their family hated each other so much, Romeo and Juliet had never met before.

It happened that in every certain time of the year the Capulets (Juliet’s family) made this great feast in which they invited all the townsfolk for except the Montagues, so as usual they sent their servants to invite the town’s people. One of the servants didn’t really know all of the Montagues and invited by accident Romeo and two of his friends to the feast. After much thinking Romeo and his friends, Benvolio and Mercutio, decided to go to the party. While the feast was taken place, the Capulets arranged a marriage for their daughter Juliet with count Paris, a kinsman to the prince of Verona without asking for Juliet’s opinion regarding this matter. When Romeo and Juliet saw each other, I would say that it was love at first site what happened between them. Soon after the party finished, Romeo asked one of his friends to tell him who was that girl with whom he had danced. When both of them realized whom they were, a feeling of discouragement invaded their heads but the love they had for each other was greater than their family’s antipathy; therefore, their affair had to be kept a secret until hopefully one day their families would come together.

Suddenly, Romeo comes with the idea of getting married the next day on the chapel, so they both agree to meet at the place and marry without letting their parents find out. As they had already agreed, they both went to the chapel and were secretly married by the Friar Lawrence. When the ceremony finishes, they plan to see each other at night, but what they didn’t knew is that that would be their last time together.

Soon after they farewell each other, Romeo set out forth to the town, and to his surprise, finds his friends, Mercutio and Benvolio, fighting with some guys from the Capulet family, including Tybalt, lady Capulet’s cousin. With all the riot taking place, Romeo does all he can to stop it, but the fighting ends with one sword blow from Tybalt, killing Mercutio. Consequently Romeo becomes very angry and agrees to have a duel with Tybalt. So he kills Tybalt and runs away to escape from the Prince’s judgment of Banishment from Verona. But before leaving nevertheless, he visits Juliet and tells her what happened and that he would find a way of returning with her as soon as possible. Not long after Romeo left, Juliet’s parents came into her room and told her that she was going to marry in two days with Count Paris. Not having anyone else more than the Friar to ask for help, she quickens and explains him the situation. Friar Lawrence tells her that the only way in which she could avoid marrying Count Paris was to pretend that she was dead and for that she had to drink an special antidote which would leave her unconsciousbut not deadfor two whole days. This would leave the Friar the needed time to tell Romeo about the plan. The next day Juliet’s parents find out that there daughter’s dead, not knowing that it was just a fake death. Once Romeo discovers that his dear love Juliet is “dead,” he immediately decides to go to Verona. That night, however, before he returns to Verona, Romeo decides to purchase poison from an apothecary to kill himself. The hasty decision Romeo makes of returning to Verona and kill himself proves his thought was week and poor. His impulsiveness did not give him time to contemplate about the aftereffects. If Romeo had thought about visiting the Friar, he would have discovered that Juliet’s death was staged, and that Juliet would soon awaken. When Romeo gets to the place where Juliet was lying immobile, he finds Paris, taking flowers to Juliet. Paris, knowing that Romeo was the one who killed Tybalt, jumped over Romeo and began to fight him. Romeo, been faster and stronger than Paris, kills him and runs unto Juliet’s body, kissing her the last time before the poison would had its effect. Few minutes after he perishes, Juliet amazingly awakens from her slumber, but just to see his beloved husband dead. Friar Lawrence then arrives to the scene and finds the two dead bodies of Count Paris and Romeo lying dead and Juliet mourning for Romeo’s death. The Friar tries to persuade Juliet into leaving Romeo, but she confesses that she wants to stay with him for the last minutes. So the friar leaves her alone, but after he returns, he finds out that Juliet killed herself since she couldn’t live without her love.

After their families discover at last what happened, they decide to live in peace and to never fight between them ever again in honor to the tragic death of their son and daughter, knowing that if they would had left Juliet make her own choices, nothing of this would had happened.

I will frankly confess that I had a hard time reading this book since it was written in old English, but besides that, I really liked it, enjoying each page I read. Shakespeare just puts so much life into his characters, that you can actually feel what they feel, making you to unconsciously involve into the scheme.

I would definitely recommend it to anyone.