Romeo and Juliet: Themes to Consider

For the past few weeks, we have been working on the story of Romeo and Juliet. We were acting out the play and watching the movie. We are now looking at the different themes of Romeo and Juliet.


2. The first theme is “The uselessness of violence”. Using violence doesn’t lead to anything productive! It only ends with people getting hurt or killed and nothing gets accomplished from it. Apart from the play that really shows this is when Tybalt comes after Romeo because the Montagues came to a Capulet party, and this leads to Mercutio’s death. then Tybalt comes back again and is then killed by Romeo. This leads to Romeo being kicked out of his city and never being able to come back. If this fight had never happened, people wouldn’t be dead and Romeo and Juliet may have been able to be together. Therefore, this violence was useless.


3. The next theme is “Stubbornness and pride leading to death and heartbreak”. This theme means that a person is want something so bad and doesn’t want to give up on it that it leads to heartbreak and in some cases death. This is shown in Romeo and Juliet when Juliet wants to be with Romeo, but her parents want her to marry Paris. Juliet is not OK with this so she goes and talks to Friar Lawrence to see what see should do. He gives her a potion that makes her look and feel like she is dead, but it only lasts for 48 hours. They are then going to tell Romeo their plan and have him come get her from her tomb when she wakes up. The message never gets to Romeo that the death is just fake. He then hears that Juliet has died and go to her tomb and kills himself just as she is waking up. Then Juliet is so heartbroken that she ends up killing herself to be with Romeo. This event in the play relates to this theme because both Romeo and Juliet are too stubborn to leave each other that it causes them to become so heartbroken when one of them dies that the other ends up killing themselves.


4. Another one of the themes is “The strength in young love”. The strength of young love means how much they love each other and how much damage that it does. This plays a major role in the story of Romeo and Juliet. If Romeo had never been in love with Rosaline, then he would have never gone to the Capulets party to find a new girl. That means that he would have never met Juliet and they would have never fallen in love. That would have stopped all the fighting that was happening in Verona and not as many people would be killed. Juliet would have married Paris and they wouldn’t have thought twice about it. Romeo wouldn’t have ended up dead and neither would have Juliet. The other side to this theme is that Romeo and Juliet’s love for each other is so strong that they can’t live without each other. Romeo doesn’t realize that Juliet isn’t dead so then he has to kill himself to be happy. Then she wakes up and sees Romeo dead so she then has to kill herself. that just shows how strong their love for each other is.


5. Another theme is “The dangers of dishonesty”. What I see this theme as the meaning is when you lie to someone they will probably end up finding out and you will be in some sort of trouble that you don’t want to be in. There were a few times in this play that people were dishonest to each other. One of the main times is when the Montagues went to the Capulet party and lied about who they were. If they would have told who they really were, then Romeo would have never had met Juliet. That could be a good thing or a bad thing. It would be bad because Juliet would have to end up marrying Paris, even though she didn’t want to. another time is when Juliet faked her death to get out of marrying Paris. If she would have just told her parents that she didn’t want to and talked it through with them. She didn’t have to “Fake Kill” herself just so she could be with Romeo. In this situation, this caused a lot of deaths that may have never happened if the truth would have been told in the first place.


6. One of the last themes from Romeo and Juliet is “Revenge leads to destruction”. This theme means that when you get revenge on someone, it usually doesn’t go very well. The person that you got revenge on, will usually be mad and end up wanting to get some sort of revenge on you. A great example of this from the play is when the Montague Boys go to the Capulet party Tybalt realizes that they are Montague’s. Tybalt is very upset from this and tries to go talk to Romeo about this. He is trying to get his revenge on them. He only is able to find Mercutio and Benvolio. They want to fight with him and then Mercutio ends up getting stabbed by Tybalt. Then Romeo is very upset with Tybalt that when he comes back to fight with Romeo, Romeo ends up stabbing Tybalt and killing him. All of this revenge on people is only ending badly. People are getting killed and Romeo is banished from his city. If people would let things go once and awhile, there would be less fighting and revenge happening in the world. Revenge is doing nothing good for the two families. It is causing lots of destruction in the city of Verona!


From all of these themes, most people will be able to take something out of them and learn. This is a great play/movie to watch!

 

 

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