Love in Romeo and Juliet

Shakespeare demonstrates many different types of love throughout his construct “Romeo & Juliet”. Shakespeare’s views on love reflect the time period in which it was written. “Romeo and Juliet” was written in 1595 with the plot taken from Arthur Brooks’ poem “The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet” which was written in 1562. Shakespeare exposes Juliet’s parents as being unkind, callous and nasty. This is revealed through their actions and behaviour towards Juliet.

Capulet starts in the play by being acting as a nice father and protects Juliet by telling Paris that he cannot marry Juliet as she is too young, Juliet was aged either 13 or 14 and it was usual to marry early because life expectancy was short. This we realise was just an act because in the time period fathers were just the providers and they never really showed love for their sons/daughters. This is shown when we get to Act 3 Scene 5 and Capulet changes his mind and decided that Juliet will now get married to Paris.

This was because in the time period it was common for fathers to choose their daughters husbands from a pool of possible suitors. This is because Capulet thinks the wedding will make her happy after the death of her cousin Tybalt, as she has really been upset about Romeo’s banishment. However when Juliet informs Capulet that she would not like to get married to Paris and her parents get quite angry with Lady Capulet saying that ” I would the fool were married to her grave”. Juliet then goes on to beg that she does not want to have to marry Paris and then Capulet replies, “Hang thee young baggage, disobedient wretch! “.

Implying that she will marry Paris or her family might abandon her and wish her dead. This would have been because of the fact that daughters belonged to their fathers and wives to their daughters and they could do with them what they wanted. However in the Montague household the Montague’s, treat Romeo differently because in Act 1 Scene 1 when he has disappeared all morning Lady Montague fears that something may have happened to him, “O where is Romeo, saw him you today? ” she could also fear that he could be in danger. This is how the reader expects all parent and child relationships to be not like how they are in the Capulet family.

Then we do not really see Romeos parents again until Act 3 Scene 1 where they stand up for their son by saying that he shouldn’t be killed because he killed the person that should have been killed anyway. If the Capulet’s had acted like this about Juliet would she have been different, maybe she would have wanted to marry Paris and not betray her parents. By the end of the play, Romeo only has his father at his funeral because his mum had died of grief of Romeo being banished. Shakespeare also has her death on the same night that Romeo kills himself so Montague has to deal with double loss.

Also it is Montague that first offers to have a statue of Juliet made so in a way he must feel partly responsible and then Capulet follows because maybe he doesn’t want to be seen as the bad guy still. Mercutio has brotherly love for Romeo; however, he is willing to tease him, for example, when he makes Romeo go to the Capulet party even though he does not want to go. In addition, this is exposed when he decides to fight Tybalt instead of Romeo, who does not desire to. Maybe he sees love as always being there for someone and doing things that they do not want or cannot do.

The Nurse loves Juliet by helping her find Romeo, her true love, and she helps organise their wedding. She also comes up with ways to sneak Juliet out or Romeo in. By doing this, she betrayed Capulet and Lady Capulet who had no idea what she was up to. This is because The Nurse and Juliet have a greater and closer relationship then Juliet and Lady Capulet because The Nurse brought Juliet up as her own. “When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple of my dug and felt it bitter” this implies that the Nurse had to breast feed and wean Juliet because Lady Capulet refused to do it.

Since the Nurse brought Juliet up her own mother feels uncomfortable in a room with Juliet unless the Nurse is there. This is shown in Act 1 Scene 3 when she says she would like a private word with Juliet and calls the Nurse straight back into the room. This is mainly due to the fact that parental relation ships with children aren’t as strong as they are now. Therefore this would be why Juliet would tell the Nurse about her love for Romeo because she respects her more than her mother as the Nurse gives her more motherly love.

However in Act 3 Scene 5 the Nurse abandons Juliet and her love for Romeo by taking Lord and Lady’s Capulet’s side for why she should marry Paris and she tells Juliet “Romeo is banished, and all the world to nothing that he dares ne’er come back to challenge you. ” Which is bad enough to hear that your husband won’t come back to claim you as his, but she can’t leave it alone. Next she tells Juliet “Your first is dead, or ’twere as good he were as living here and you no use of him. ” This means she thinks Juliet should marry Paris because she won’t see Romeo again even though he is Juliet’s husband and true love.

Shakespeare reveals Romeo’s love for Rosaline is really infatuation by the language Romeo uses. We can tell this because when he talks about her he uses oxymorons. Shakespeare used these oxymorons, “O’ brawling love, loving hate” “heavy lightness” “feather of lead” “bright smoke” “cold fire” “sick health” to show Romeos confusion about if he really loves Rosaline. Compared to when he talks about Juliet he talks in Sonnet form because Sonnets were used to traditionally used for expressing one’s love. Maybe Romeo just wanted Rosaline because he couldn’t have her and she didn’t want him.

Benvolio and Mercutio have to try to talk Romeo out of this crush so they make him go to the Capulet party when he meets Juliet so it turns out to be a good thing. Shakespeare shows the love between Romeo and Juliet through their language. This includes sonnets, images and religious symbols that they use when they talk to each other. Shakespeare uses these features to show that Romeo and Juliet’s feelings are true love. Their love is short lived because throughout the play there becomes a lack of communication, when Romeo gets banished to Mantra so they both end up killing themselves. Sometimes they feel the same at the same time.

This is shown when Romeo is banished because in Act 3 scene 2 Juliet is really upset and then in scene 3 Romeo is as upset as Juliet was in scene 2. Also Romeo wants to know if Juliet hates him because he killed her cousin and does she really want him round to spend their wedding night together? He then almost repeats what Juliet said about what’s in a name in act 2 scene 2, Romeo then goes crazy and threatens to cut his name out of himself with a dagger so that he and Juliet can be together happily. Paris’ love for Juliet is quite real. He really has feelings for Juliet and he is willing to put up a fight for her.

When he is told that she is too young he replies “Younger than she are happy mothers made. ” Paris is saying this as it is almost having a dig at Capulet because Lady Capulet would have been around Juliet’s age when she had Juliet. He also get quite excited when he hears that Juliet will marry him and when she turns up at Friar Lawrence’s cell he starts calling her “my lady and my wife” but Juliet won’t have any of it. She refuses to answer his questions and wishes to not really spend time with him as she knows that she isn’t going to marry him because she will do anything to get out of that marriage.

This was due to the fact that Juliet was too modern to survive in a late medieval society as she did not want to be bound by the rules and did not like being told what she had to by everyone. She would have rather lived by her own rules and make her own decisions. The love shown through each character represents their personality and several people might have not wanted others to be happy in love or find their own love. This may have been forced into a marriage or are still alone but they resent others finding their own happiness.