Tragedy has the ability to strike at any given time. The depressing entity is that it comes when people least expect it. Shakespeare is widely known for all of his literary works, but one of his most famous tragedies, is Romeo and Juliet. Set in the town of Verona, the reader gains a overall noble feeling about the story, but soon he finds out that there is a great deal of strife going on in this conservative town. Throughout Romeo and Juliet; Shakespeare uses timing and the idea of revenge against two families to show how two star crossed lovers have a destiny with death.
Romeo and Juliet is a fascinating love story in itself. As many people in this world know, true love knows no limits, and when two lovers become entirely entrapped with their love, they become oblivious as to what is going on in the rest of their lives. When Romeo and Juliet first meet, it seems that their falling in love happens with the blink of an eye. One minute they have meet each other, and the next they are to plotting their marriage. Frank Magill states “This story of two star crossed lovers is one of Shakespeare’s tenderest dramas” (5701). Shakespeare wants his audience to fall in love with Romeo and Juliet, and then when the time comes, he will be able to introduce the main problem with their marriage.
Donald Hutera states, “In Romeo and Juliet, dramatically speaking, the destination is as important as the route taken to reach it. The story’s main ingredients are feuding families and doomed lovers” (1). There are two families that are involved throughout this play, the Capulets and the Montagues. Juliet is a member of the Capulet family, and Romeo is the only son of the Montague family.
In Act 1 scene 4, Juliet is informed that Romeo is a Capulet (Shakespeare 200). Juliet is heart broken because she falls in love with a loathed enemy. Magill says that even though Shakespeare may seem to forget the family theme in the overall characterization of the lovers, it only allows the reader to obtain a better understanding for Romeo and Juliet’s suffering between each other and their families. Magill also expresses, ” If at times, Shakespeare seems to forget the family theme in his lyrical fascination with the lovers, that fact only sets off their suffering all the more poignantly against the background of the senseless and arbitrary strife between the Capulets and Montagues”(5703).
These two lovers’ are very entranced in their feelings for each other. Each does whatever it takes to gain the others full attention and love. Romeo and Juliet are unaware of the future and what it holds for them. The characters are unaware of what is going to happen to them, the audience is full aware of what the future holds for them. As The Hutchinson Dictionary of the Arts states, “In the theater, a play dealing with a serious theme, traditionally one in which a character meets disasters a result either of personal failings or circumstances beyond his or her control” ( Tragedy, 1). The dictionary also states, “Tragedy was always intended to have a beneficial effect on its audience” (1).
Since the audience knows of the two lovers fate, Romeo and Juliet must now convey a plan to escape their feuding families and become united in matrimony. Juliet is the one who divulges the plan but fails to tell Romeo exactly what is going to happen. This is where the play starts to become tragic. Donald Hutera conveys, “The tragic inevitability of the titular characters’ joint fate exerts an inescapable emotional pull, and a moral force. Most of us should be able to identify on some level with their passion and plight”( 1). The two lovers plight seems to come across as an interesting plan that looks as if it might work to their advantage, however, Romeo and Juliet will soon find that this plot totally opposes their original thought.
For these two, true love knows no limits. Juliet devises a plot to take poison and appear as if she is dead, however she will be in a elongated sleep. Her reasoning behind this is that when her family has left her lifeless body. She will awake to Romeo and they will run away and be able to marry. However, the plan was plotted quickly. Juliet fails to tell Romeo her intentions, which leads to chaos. When Romeo first sees Juliet, his heart is destroyed and he grabs a bottle of poison and indulges in his death sentence (Shakespeare 424). Romeo simply could not bear to see his love dead, however since Juliet fails to tell him her intentions, he is unaware that she will awake soon. When Juliet arises from her slumber, she awakes to see Romeo deceased on top of her. She also can not bear to see her love lifeless, so she quickly grabs a dagger and stabs herself. Now both lovers are gone simply because they were too quick in their decision.
Juliet has ulterior motives to her entire plot. She wanted to seek revenge upon her family to show them that even though Romeo is a Montague, they love each other regardless of the family feuding. Frank Magill says, “The principle theme is that the tension between the two houses, and all other oppositions of the play derive from the central one. Thus romance is set against revenge, love against hate, day against night, sex against war, youth against age, and heart to fire ” ( 5703). These two lovers simply want to beat all of the odds while at the same time gain some revenge on their families.
The timing of Romeo and Juliet also plays an important part to the whole story in itself. First of all it is pretty coincidental that Romeo and Juliet fall in love when they are at the perfect time for marriage. In the Middle Ages, lords and ladies are expected to be marry by the age of twenty, and so the whole meeting of these two star crossed lovers actually could have worked to their advantage, if the two families were able to get along. Ultimately the Capulets and Montagues are major enemies and have been fighting since the beginning and neither family will accept their son or daughter marrying a child from the opposite house. To the complete opposite side though, there is the timing of Juliet’s portrayal of death which ends up killing both lovers, therefore causing even more sadness among their families.
Ultimately this play conveys true love, tragedy, and the strife between two feuding families. As Donald Hutera states, “In Romeo and Juliet, dramatically speaking, the destination is as important as the route taken to reach it. The story’s main ingredients are feuding families and doomed lovers”(1). Everything that happens along the way for Romeo and Juliet takes place for a reason, and every detail small and large plays a major role throughout the play. Frank Magill says, “For the families, after all, the story has a classically comic ending; the feud is buried with the lovers- which seems to be the intention of the indefinite fate that compels the action”709). However, until the end, the play remains that of “Juliet and her Romeo” ( 5704).
Overall, the reader gains a feeling of desolation at the end of this tragic play. He or she sees that love causes an enormous tragedy and now the families must live with even more grief than what the beginning held. Romeo and Juliet’s timing and theme of revenge make it a story which never grows old.
Works Cited
Hutera, Donald. “Re-Imaging Romeo and Juliet.” Dance Theatre Journal (London, England). 3 November 2001: 20-24 SIRS RESEARCHER. Boca Raton: SIRS Mandarin, Inc., Fall 2002.
Magill, Frank. “Romeo and Juliet.” Masterplots: 2,010 Plot Stories & Essay Reviews from the World’s Fine Literature. 1976 ed.
Shakespeare, William. Wells, Stanley, ed. Romeo and Juliet. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000
“Tragedy.” The Hutchinson Dictionary of the Arts. 2001: SIRS RESEARCHER. Boca Raton: SIRS Mandarin, Inc,. Fall 2002
