Prophecies in Romeo and Juliet

“A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life...” From the first paragraph of the play we can see how through the dialogues their fate is stated. Romeo and Juliet’s love was forbidden by society, yet was their tragic end just their parents’ fault? Or there was something else?

From the beginning we see this constant association with death that is always presented in the whole storyline. First we see Romeo playing his role as the romantic hero, and sharing with us his dark thoughts about unrequired love. Moreover, while the story follows its course, not only he gives a hint of what’s going to happen next, Juliet is the chosen one to show us which are the results of so much hate. Maybe, those thoughts that we thought as premonitions of the worst, are no more than a judgment based on so much hate that she perceived around their love. Juliet says:

“Give me my Romeo. And when I shall die

Take him and cut him out in little stars,

And he will make the face of heaven so fine

That all the world will be in love with night..”

This shadowy revelation that Juliet experiments after her cousin’s death, might give us a sense of monopolizing feelings over her beloved; however, Romeo died after seen her in her grave as she asked the destiny to do so. Then, Shakespeare through those monologues gave us the feeling of losing and leads us to the end we already experimented.

          Reflections, premonitions, intuitions, signs, foreseeing; all of them are mechanisms that helps the reader to sense tragedy and their love as a destiny’s decision towards characters life.

                                                                                                                                            

                                                                                                                                            

Is it family overrated?

We were born in a certain place, in a certain time, and with certain people who are called our family. It is something that we cannot change (unless we travel in time), because we have a blood union with them, and sometimes we have things in common. In spite of the fact that people say “they are the people who are always going to be with you”, this blood union is not as important as the relationships we built through the pass of years. In fact, we can see a clear example of it in one of the greatest works of Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet”.

The relationship between Juliet and her parents is quite atypical. Her father, someone who does not care if Juliet is happy or not, just wants to see her married to Paris even when he told her that she is "free to choose" her own mate. Lady Capulet, a distant woman who loves her daughter even when she do not demonstrate her love, lives in a fantasy world in which she has to do everything her husband say. In addition, the Nurse is the one who cares and loves Juliet even more than her own mother. She is her confident and plays the role as if she was Lady Capulet. Without having a blood union between them, the Nurse was the person who raised Juliet and knew her personal desires.

In my opinion, there are people who do not care about their own family and treat them like if they were strangers. As a result, they find friends who play that role and built a non-traditional family with them. However, I cannot imagine living in the medieval age having a distant relationship with my parents. So, my question is: do you think family is overrated? Do you believe that friends are the family we choose? 

Juliet or Portia: passivity in the main role

In Romeo and Juliet, the role of the man is one aggressive, brave and passionate. The book is plenty of references to duels, which were the way to solve situations and arguments back in those times, and sex in the forms of puns and allegories. But, where are the women? Women play a quiet role in the plays of Shakespeare albeit they are without a shadow of a doubt the most important characters in those plays.

Juliet is portrayed as a girl whose presence, although vital in importance, is merely a entity waiting for something to happen. She enters into scene when she is told about the party, but especially when she meets Romeo. However, she is important for the play since she may have gone on with Paris in a relationship but Romeo could not have been successful in love without Juliet.

Juliet + Portia, Original drawing

Portia is a girl who was betrothed to whoever opens the right "casket" out of three, being one of them of gold, one of silver, and one of lead. Again, the passive attitude from the woman in another of the Shakespeare's plays. Nevertheless, she is the one who sets the story in motion from Belmont by just being...beautiful. Without her, Bassanio would not have fell in love, he would not have asked Antonio for money and none of the action would have happened.

As it can be read in my words, women play an essential role in at least the two plays of Shakespeare I have recalled, but is it really that they are the puppeteers of the story? without them, would the story have even seen the final page?

Juliet: From Girl to Woman

As the play develops, Romeo and Juliet go through a process of transformation and maturity. Romeo, for example, faces reality, and he is forced to change his perspective and the way he thinks, acts and love.

But I would like to focus on Juliet. She is the central character and the one who reaches a certain state of maturity through the play—in a more noticeable way than Romeo. Juliet, for instance, plays two roles at the same time: the obedient daughter and innocent kid, and the mature and independent woman and wife. Even though she was supposed to keep playing the role of a daughter—and Paris’ wife—she did what she wanted to do and took responsibility for her own desires. In this regard, Juliet plays both roles as Shakespeare wanted to: play roles as criticism of the play of roles in society.

In this sense, there is also a clear confusion of roles as non of the characters in the play is aware of the change that is happening, unlike us, spectators, that notice and know the reason why Juliet struggles with these roles.

Many of you may say that she went through this process because she was in love and followed her heart. I think Romeo was the excuse she wanted to finally breakaway and show herself as an independent woman. In other words, she went through this process of maturity in a way of rebellion against her father, her family, against the old order. I think she took advantage of this situation to become a woman—an individualistic woman.

Do you think that Juliet just followed her heart because she was blindly in love, or followed her heart because she saw an opportunity to become a woman and stop being treated like a kid?