The Analysis of Romeo and Juliet

 When my teacher announced to my class that we would be studying Romeo and Juliet I had established a range of mix of emotions. From what I had heard from when I was younger was that Romeo and Juliet was the most well-known love story of all time, but was it? Through having a deeper understanding of what the themes of love and hate have to do with Romeo and Juliet I still can’t understand how the play was more than two hours long. Society today see something new and adapt to it and then forget about it and move on, so how can people still care about Romeo and Juliet when it was created four centuries ago? My teacher wrestled with the class and tried to assure us that there would be more to the Baz Luhrmann’s movie than just watching Leonardo DiCaprio play Romeo but we would actually learn and develop why people since the 1500’s still read and watch Romeo and Juliet. My teacher kept reassuring us that the play’s themes of love, violence and feud would be timeless and relatable for centuries. Even though I had read hundreds of articles and listened in every class I still didn’t believe that people still care about the ancient, old story of love and hate. Among what everyone thinks, I believe it is the plays themes that make it timeless. Regardless of the fact that it was written in the 1500’s people still watch and learn about it today. It’s everlasting themes of love and hate genuinely allow people to relate to the play. Its unforgettable protagonists deeply affect the minds of the readers. Its magnificent language which many writers today honour in admiration are all reasons for the plays timelessness. These fundamentals make the play, Romeo and Juliet, one of the greatest timeless plays that we know. The two star-crossed lovers who are forbidden to love each other struggle to comprehend how their families’ feuds would ever come to a conclusion. The play’s universal because people can diligently relate to the themes such and love, violence, death and hate and these refrains make up the timeless play. The Montague and Capulet feud doesn’t attain anything substantial other than causing a never-ending warfare between the two households. The antagonism that controls both families causes immense pain with the outcome of both children dying. It takes numerous mortalities for the two families to end their lifelong feud. The lesson here is that people should overcome their anger, not focus on something that they don’t even remember why it started in the first place. In the prologue, the opening sentence states “A long-standing hatred between two families erupts into new violence”.

 William Shakespeare puts this in the prologue to give the audience an understanding of the two families long-lasting feuds and how the two families will end up resolving the feud in a tragic death of the two desperate lovers. This idea is relevant in our world today. Our world is growing unsettling concepts of the good in our world. Political discussions are imbedded in disagreement, along with a fearsome rise in strict concepts of the good. ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in this case is relatable to modern society today. “But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.” Romeo exclaims this metaphor as he relates Juliet to the sun, the light in his life but didn’t they just meet? Romeo’s use of light and darkness language towards Juliet and the families shows that he goes from loving Rosaline and saying that she is the only one he loves yet when he lays eyes on Juliet, he instantly starts to be infatuated with her, can’t he just decide who he truly loves? The metaphor of the sun can be interpreted in so many different ways but what I believe is that Romeo finds Juliet the light in his life. Romeo and Juliet’s young love is what I believe keeps making viewers continuously reminisce about their simple true love story. The fact that Juliet disobeys her family’s wishes of marrying Paris and Romeo goes from Rosaline to Juliet shows that the play isn’t all relatable because yes arranged marriages aren’t a drastic thing in society today but it still happens around the world. Countries like India experience unfair laws continuously in their day to day lives. India is one of the countries where the female population is less than the proportion of the male population. Juliet living in a patriarchal society is relatable. Women today are still not seen as equal around the world, women everyday are fighting for equal rights and men are seen overruling women around the globe. Many factors of the playwright William Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet are relevant and relatable.

 Many factors of the play could be considered very 1500’s especially his use of Shakespearean literature in the portrayal of the patriarchal society. Lord Capulet and Paris discuss the marriage of Juliet and Paris when they exclaim “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. Younger than she are happy mothers made.” Girls who were brought up in a wealthy family during the Shakespearean times didn’t have much choice in choosing who they should love. Marriages weren’t planned to make the couple happy but to rather make the families happy. The play forces the audience to digest the theme of love and hate. It vitalities a young, teenage girl to disobey her rich family and it hustles her family to take ownership of their prized possession. 

William Shakespeare’s use of imagery and metaphors forces the audience to feel Romeo and Juliet’s true love relationship, so the debate of whether or not Romeo and Juliet’s timelessness will continue and has developed the ideas that the themes of violence, love and hate will continue to be learnt my students, read by adults, and enjoyed by everyone.