Ali Romeo and Juliet Essay

Ali Al Dabbagh

Mr. Cohen

ENG3U

June 12th, 2023

To what extent does Romeo create his own downfall within Romeo and Juliet?

William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is considered by many to be the best love story and performance ever written. However, it is Romeo’s excessive love that is the reasoning for all the tragic events that take place, in which Romeo is oblivious to the consequences that may arise from his actions. It is clear that it was his imprudent love for Juliet that was the reasoning for his spontaneous and impulsive bad decisions, and the consequences for these actions are what eventually lead to his downfall. Between Act Two and Act Three, the themes of disloyalty and obsessive love become very vivid. Romeo quickly finds himself losing himself and his loyalty towards his fellow Montagues, and he starts to go down a bad path of decisions that cause his relationship and life to collapse. Blind-sighted by love, Romeo eventually lost all his morals and devoted all his actions and decisions to Juliet.

Immediately after Act One, Romeo clearly shows himself adjusting his lifestyle by being disloyal towards his own family because his love for Juliet was growing stronger. Romeo being unloyal towards the Montagues, his obsessive love for Juliet, and him dedicating himself to her is what led to his downfall. As Romeo states to Juliet when talking about his loyalty towards her, "My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself because it is an enemy to thee" (2, 2, 60), which is him telling her how he does not want to represent the last name of Montague because it is a bad name to the Capulets, so it is a bad name for himself as well. Romeo’s disloyalty towards his own family is what added to his downfall because it made him more isolated, and the only person he could see himself being with was Juliet. Later on, it became hard for them to work out, which caused him to throw his life and family away for Juliet, which caused the downfall of his life and relationship. Romeo’s impulsive decision to throw away his last name really shows his excessive love for Juliet. The keyword "enemy" emphasizes his betrayal of his family, as it is a very strong word to use considering he’s talking about the people who raised him in life, and goes to show how passionate his love for Juliet was and the fact that he was oblivious of the consequences that may arise from him referring to the Montagues as an "enemy". Romeo also used the language feature of a metaphor by calling Juliet a "dear saint". He used this because in his eyes he sees Juliet as someone who is to be worshiped and is holy. Romeo feels the need to religiously devote himself to Juliet, which really highlights how much he loves her. The use of this metaphor clearly shows that his love for her was too much, considering that a relationship should be a mutual love for one another, rather than worshiping Juliet and treating her as if she were a queen. The use of the dialogue between Romeo and Juliet underlines Romeo’s excessive love for Juliet, as Juliet speaks to Romeo as a significant other, engaging in normal conversations, and Romeo feels the need to dedicate and worship himself for her. Shakespeare wrote the play this way to emphasize his uncontrolled love for her and that he would say almost anything because of how much he loved her. During the infamous balcony scene, Shakespeare uses the narrative method of soliloquy, as Romeo states: "But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun" (2, 2, 5). This is Romeo talking to himself in regard to Juliet’s beauty. The sun is a metaphor for her beauty, as her brightness overtakes everything around him. In Brown’s essay, Juliet’s Taming of Romeo, she makes it very clear that their excessive love for each other was brought about just because of their inexperience in life, and previous relationships. And in fact, it was their desire for consummation that made them desperately want to marry each other. This shows the reason Romeo was devoting his whole life to Juliet, because part of his excessive love had a lot to do with sex. As the article states, "the so-called balcony scene, which contains the lovers interchange the morning after the consummation" (Brown 334). This relates to the theme of obsessive love because it goes on to talk about how there are very few scenes where Romeo and Juliet get to spend time alone, outside of the drama from their family. And for those very few times they do spend alone, they make it about trying to get married for the sake of having sex. Carolyn E. Brown has written different articles in the past on Shakespeare, so she is knowledgeable about what she is talking about. This specific essay is reliable because it was published by the Johns Hopkins University Press, which has been a reliable publisher since 1961. Brown’s work shows that Romeo’s excessive love for Juliet, as well as the dumb decisions he made, were partially because of his desire for sex. This dialogue between Romeo and Juliet is written the way it is because they wanted to get married so desperately for the act of consummation, as Romeo was desperately in love with her for the sake of having sex, which explains why he worships her as if she is a queen. Meanwhile, the way Juliet talks to him is seen as that of a normal boyfriend. The play was written with extensive love, with Romeo devoting himself to Juliet because of Shakespeare's love experience in life. It is known that Shakespeare got married at an age considered young, and stayed married to his wife until the day he died; he also sent money to his wife while living in London, showing that he was devoted and caring to his wife. All of these facts reveal how excessive Romeo’s love for Juliet was and how he was oblivious to everything else and blinded by love.

At the very start of Act Three, Romeo’s imprudent love causes him to make the first major mistake, where he spontaneously kills Tybalt. The consequences of his actions in killing Juliet’s cousin caused a series of events like him being exiled from Verona, and having to be secretive when it came to seeing Juliet. Romeo is now considered a fugitive after his actions, and this is exactly the major cause of his downfall. As Romeo says to Tybalt after he enters the room furiously ready to draw, "Fire-eyed fury be my conduct now. Now, Tybalt, take the "villain" back again" (3, 1, 130). This quote clearly shows Romeo's impulsive decision and rage, which caused him to make a bad decision without being aware of the consequences that arise from it. He was so blinded by his love for Juliet that his mind didn't even think of what could happen to him if he killed her cousin. Romeo killing Tybalt was the starting point of his downfall, which changed everything in their relationship and lives. It made the Capulet family hate him more, and caused him to be banished from Verona, so he had to be sneaky when it came to seeing Juliet. The use of the keyword "fire-eyed" really shows the fact that Romeo's rage caused an impulsive decision that led to his downfall. "Fire-eyed" really shows his anger at that moment, where he made the intrusive decision to kill Tybalt, which had a ton of consequences. Romeo foreshadows the fight between him and Tybalt right before they draw, stating, "Either thou or I, or both, must go with him." (3,1,130). This foreshadowing has been used here because he is still filled with rage against Tybalt, and he lets him know he will be killed even if it means he will die as well. A narrative style that was heavily used throughout Act Three, Scene One, was the use of stage directions. The extensive use of stage directions was used to show all the different fights that took place, as well as who died, who drew their swords, and who entered and exited each scene throughout the fights. Other acts did not use stage directions as much as this act did, and this was so the audience could really picture and understand how the different fights played out. In Coppelia Kahn’s article, Coming of Age in Verona, she talks about how their love was brought together by the fact that they are both young, growing up, and bonding with someone they are attracted to of the opposite sex, and how Romeo’s excessive masculinity and getting in fights caused the downfall of their relationship. As the article states, "But it is the feud that fosters the rash, choleric impulsiveness typical of youth by offering a permanent invitation to an outlet for violence" (Kahn 5). This quote is related to the fact that Romeo caused his own downfall because of the consequences of his impulsive actions and the number of violent fights he caused. My main arguments for that are the fights that he instigated, like the fight with Tybalt and Paris. This article is reliable because it was published by Modern Language Studies, and all their work is peer-reviewed by academic professionals. They have been publishing reliable work consistently since 1969. Kahn is also most known for her work on gender studies throughout Shakespeare, which means she is well-informed about what she is writing about. This part of the text, where extensive violence takes place, was written the way it is because Shakespeare grew up in a very violent era. During his early life in school, the execution was very common for crimes, and crowds would come to see it and love it; the bodies would stay there for days for even kids to see. Since the times Shakespeare grew up in were very violent, that's why violence was heavily used in the play.

Towards the end of the play, Romeo’s obsessive love, craziness, and jealousy take over and causes him to lose all morals. He makes the impulsive decision to draw on Paris, killing him. Someone else's love and desire to marry Juliet took over his emotions and caused him to make bad impulsive decisions that caused the downfall of his relationship and his death. Romeo’s last line, which he says to Paris right before killing him, states, "Wilt thou provoke me? Then have at it, boy!" (5,3,70). Paris was doing the right thing and following the orders of the Prince, which was to apprehend Romeo if he was seen to be exiled for being a murderer. Yet Romeo saw it as an act of jealousy since he was Juliet’s true love, and she was being forced to marry Paris. Romeo was going to Juliet’s tomb in order to die next to her, so killing Paris was completely unnecessary considering he was going to end his life soon anyway. He was so obsessed with the fact that he wanted to die with his love that he would kill anyone getting in his way. The keyword used in the quotation "provoke", is used in the context of Paris forcing Romeo to draw on him, when in reality, it was avoidable and he could have accepted his fate of being apprehended. Yet because of his issue with spontaneous decisions and imprudent love for Juliet, he decides to kill Paris, all because he was the one to be married to her. Romeo doesn’t think of the consequences of his actions and was so blinded by love that he just decided to kill Paris with him when it was unnecessary. Romeo arrives at Juliet’s tomb with Balthasar, where he tells him his plans to open the tomb to take back the ring he had given to Juliet and says to him that if Balthasar tries to stop him, he will "tear thee joint by joint and strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs." (5,3,35). This language feature is a hyperbole considering Balthasar is a member of the Montague family and a trusted friend of Romeo. Yet it was used to scare Balthasar away so he could kill himself with Juliet in peace. This literary device is used to threaten Balthasar conveying his excessive love for Juliet, and that he's so crazy in love that he’s disloyal to his own family to the point where he would threaten to torture Balthasar. The use of one-on-one dialogue between Romeo and Paris is used to show Romeo’s secret hatred for Paris, not because of the threat of being apprehended but because Paris was meant to marry Juliet and thought they were in love. Romeo was clearly so obsessively in love with Juliet that the thought of another man being her partner filled him with so much rage and hatred that he was capable of murder. Killing Paris was unnecessary because at the end of the day, he was going to kill himself anyway, but he made the compulsive decision to kill him just because of his hatred for him. Goldberg’s essay The Multiple Masks of Romeo: Towards a New Shakespearean Production, it talks about the consequences of excessive love and how it can sometimes lead to happiness and sometimes lead to unhappiness and tragic. It mentions how Romeo’s actions and the consequences for those actions are what led to their love being tragic and their relationship as well as Romeo’s life collapsing. As the essay says, "The price is heavy. Mercutio is dead. Tybalt is dead. Paris is dead. Lady Montague is dead. Romeo is dead. Juliet is dead." (Goldberg 406), and the reasoning for all these deaths listed is Romeo’s actions. The essay talks about how the price of Romeo’s excessive love is "heavy" considering it caused the deaths of all these people, all because of his violence and bad decisions. Shakespeare wrote his play with repetitive violence because it was common in his time. People fought against each other for glory, which was common in everyday life. Everyone carried weapons. Given the facts that Shakespeare got married young and stayed married till the day he died, and that violence was very common in his time, It’s possible that Shakespeare wrote this play the way he did because of his passion for his wife and used the common theme of violence because of how common it was growing up.

In conclusion, Romeo was unaware of the potential repercussions of his actions due to his intense love, which is the cause of all the tragic events that occur. It’s as clear as day that the cause of his poor decisions was his reckless passion for Juliet. Starting from Act 2, Romeo clearly starts loving Juliet imprudently; his disloyalty towards his own family and referring to them as an "enemy" contradicts the Montagues' hatred towards the Capulet family. However, in Act 3, Romeo starts to make impulsive decisions like killing Tybalt, which was unnecessary violence, all because he was blinded by love. Even though Romeo's killing of Tybalt caused him to be exiled from Verona, and it should've been a wake-up call for him to stop being violent, he still decided to unnecessarily kill Paris in Act 5 all because of his passion for Juliet. Romeo clearly lost who he was as a person all because of his excessive love for Juliet, which was corrupting him. Shakespeare's message portrayed in Romeo's downfall is all self-imposed and reveals the message that excessive love can replace all other values in life, like family and freedom in life.

Work Cited

Brown, Carolyn E. “Juliet’s Taming of Romeo.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, vol. 36, no. 2, 1996, pp. 333–55. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/450952. Accessed 5 June 2023

Goldberg, M. A. “The Multiple Masks of Romeo: Toward a New Shakespearean Production.” The Antioch Review, vol. 28, no. 4, 1968, pp. 405–26. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/4610951. Accessed 5 June 2023.

Kahn, Coppélia. “Coming of Age in Verona.” Modern Language Studies, vol. 8, no. 1, 1977, pp. 5–22. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3194631. Accessed 5 June 2023.

Shakespeare, William, et al. The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Washington Square Press New Folger's edition. New York, Washington Square Press Published by Pocket Books, 1992.