We all know the story of Romeo and Juliet. The story of two destined lovers who were killed by their own doing. But what if they weren’t two destined lovers who got unlucky, but doomed partners that were never going to have a good-life to begin with. William Shakespeare gives us a view of early signs of gang conflict in the early age of Verona, Italy. He gives us a perspective of the norms and customs of Italy during the Setting of William Shakespeare’s most famous story. Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare, gives us a story of two young teens that have love on first sight. While their love seems destined, their families have been in conflict for years now and prevent them from having their desired relationship. While Romeo and Juliet have their own family problems, we learn that Capulets have already arranged a marriage with someone other that Romeo. We see throughout the story that Romeo and Juliet slowly start to fade into madness as Romeo buys poison and Juliet fakes her death. The reader soon finds out that Romeo and Juliet had all the odds against them with their families fighting each other for years and the complicated feeling of a coming of age couple. They decide that the only way to end this feud is to end their lives. “But when I came, some minute ere the time, time of her awakening her untimely lay the noble Paris and true Romeo dead. She wakes and I entreated her come forth and bear this work of heaven with patience. But then a noise scare me off from the tomb, and she to desperate would not go with me, but it seems, did violence to herself.” (Act 5, Scene 3, Lines 257-264). While it may seem that free-will ended the lives of Romeo and Juliet, their love was doomed from the start because Romeo and Juliet were acting on impulse from their desires, they come from two families who hate each other, and they don’t really love each other.
“Shakespeare, William 1564 – 1616, playwright and poet, was baptized, probably by the parish priest, John Bretchgirdle, in Holy Trinity, the parish church of Stratford upon Avon, on 26 April 1564, the third child of John Shakespeare d. 1601 and Mary Arden d. 1608. It seems appropriate that the first of many gaps in the records of Shakespeare’s life should be the exact date of his birth, though that is a common problem for the period. He was probably born on 21, 22, or 23 April 1564, given the 1559 prayer book’s instructions to parents on the subject of baptisms. But, ever since Joseph Greene, an eighteenth-century Stratford curate, informed the scholar George Steevens that Shakespeare was born on 23 April, with no apparent evidence for his assertion, and Steevens adopted that date in his 1773 edition of Shakespeare, it has been usual to assume that Shakespeare was born on St George’s day, so that England’s patron saint and the birth of the ‘national poet’ can be celebrated on the same day. Where he was born is clearer: in 1564 his parents appear to have been living in Henley Street, probably in part of the building now known as Shakespeare’s Birthplace but, equally probably, not in that part of the building in which the room traditionally known as the place of Shakespeare’s birth is located. The accretion of myth and commerce around Shakespeare’s biography and its material legacy produces such paradoxes “(Holland). Most playwrights of the period typically collaborated with others at some point,and historians agree that Shakespeare did work with other playwrights, mostly early and late in his career. Some attributions, such as Titus Andronicus and the first history plays, remain controversial, while The Two Nobles and the lost Cardenio have well-attested contemporary documentation. Evidence shows that the view that several of the plays were changed by other writers after their original play. “On 23 April 1616 Shakespeare died. John Ward, a clergyman living in Stratford in the 1660s, recorded that ‘Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Johnson had a merry meeting, and it seems drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted’ (Chambers, 2.250). The story is not impossible but quite what Shakespeare died from is unknown. He was buried two days later in Holy Trinity, inside the church rather than in the churchyard because his purchase of an interest in the Stratford tithes in 1605 made him a lay rector. The epitaph, possibly written by himself, warning future generations to leave his bones where they lay, was inscribed on the grave, though the grave may not originally have been where the stone is now placed. Anne lived until 1623 (she was buried on 8 August) but her tombstone makes no mention of her husband, and refers to only one daughter; Judith seems to have been ignored (Holland).
Romeo and Juliet’s love is doomed from the start as it is seen in the play. Romeo and Juliet have a connection with one another and that they cannot be separated. William Shakespeare tells us in the eyes of Romeo that, “My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep; the more I give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite”(Act II. Scene II). Romeo makes it seem that they have been together for forever and that he will never stop loving Juliet. While he may love her, Romeo is the product of seclusion, “He prefers to be alone and read romantic poems and stories, which has limited his conception of love to celebrating beauty and speaking in poetic verse. Having no practical experience in the world of relationships, he projects his desire to love onto whatever beautiful woman he meets. As Friar Laurence tells him,’young men’s love then lies / Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.’(Act II. Scene III.) Romeo doesn’t “love” Juliet, he is just a young teen who literally chases every beautiful women he meets, Juliet and Rosaline for example. (Lamb 53)” He is just acting on his teenage instinct. (add one more source)
Romeo and Juliet had a tough time talking to each other in public due to the fact that they were both apart of families that hated one another, “Two households, both alike in dignity (In fair Verona, where we lay our scene), From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life” (Prologue). The Montagues (Romeo’s family) and the Capulets (Juliet’s family) have been fighting for some time now and have been causing some trouble lately in the land of Verona. Not only does it say in the prologue that Romeo and Juliet are going to die, but it’s inevitable for two people from feuding-foes to get along in the first place. The Capulets and Montagues hate each other. “I believe that if there was no hatred, that Romeo and Juliet would have never died.”(LeMay) If there was never a hatred for the other family Romeo and Juliet would have never had to get married in secret and it would not have led to this tragedy.(add source)
Romeo and Juliet are both very young in age. So it’s okay for them to make a couple mistakes. That’s just instinct for teenagers, and Romeo and Juliet both act on impulse multiple times during their time in Verona, “Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still, Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will! Where shall we dine?—O me! What fray was here? Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all. Here’s much to do with hate but more with love. Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate, O anything of nothing first created! O heavy lightness, serious vanity, Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms! Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health, Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is! This love feel I, that feel no love in this. Dost thou not laugh?”(Act I. Scene I.) Romeo is impulsive and overdramatic while he talks about his first love in the play, Rosaline. While Romeo can make decisions a little too fast, Juliet has her moments to. “Thy purpose marriage, send me word tomorrow” (II, ii, 144). Here, Juliet proves to be just as impulsive as Romeo. She is moved by his honorable love and immediately wishes to marry him. Therefore, she does not wish to wait long, or give Romeo time to really consider the proposal, to marry. (add one more source.)
William Shakespeare really did create a beautiful piece of art when he was making Romeo and Juliet. Not only does he create internal conflicts with each character to help the readers understand how each character thinks, but he also adds external conflicts with the other characters that helps develop the story and adds this feeling to the story while reading. The audience never get the same experience when they read Romeo and Juliet. The readers can read it once and think that they know what really happened with Romeo and Juliet, but we never really understand why it happened until the audience reads it again and fully comprehend why everything went wrong for Romeo and Juliet. Which is why William Shakespeare did such an amazing job when he hid the true evidence that led to the end of Romeo and Juliet life. He makes us think that Romeo and Juliet own free-spirited decisions led to their demise, and that it all happened in one instant. When actually, Romeo and Juliet were doomed from the start of the whole story because, Romeo and Juliet were acting on impulse from their desires, they come from two families who hate each other, and they don’t really love each other. William Shakespeare really did put a ton of thought while creating the conflicts within the city of Verona that truly took Romeo and Juliet’s lives.
Works cited
Frye, Northrop. “Romeo and Juliet: More than Convections of Love.” 1986. Readings on the Tragedies of William Shakespeare. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996. 55-63. Print. This is a great source for finding the complications of Romeo and Juliet’s love.
Holland, Peter. “Shakespeare, William 1564 – 1616.” Oxford National Biography (2010): 1-55. Print. This source literally makes up most of my essay
Lamb, Charles. “The Story of the Star-Crossed Lovers.” 1998. Literary Companion to British Literature. Farming Hills: The Greenhaven Press, 1954. N. pag. P
LeMay, Eric Charles. “Star-Crossed Something-or-Others.” Harvard Review 33 (2007): 17+.JSTOR. Web. 25 Feb. 2016.
URL
http://www.jstor.org/stable/4034673