In the first text, we are looking into Romeo and Juliet. Rustin(2012:81) argues that the story of Romeo and Juliet is about the modern emotion of romantic sexual love and the inability of medieval society to deal with this emotion. Rustin furthermore notes that medieval society in both Venona and England was based on the patriarchal authority and that both Romeo and Juliet were at odds with this structure. Romeo and Juliet are both young people who got into an ill-fated romance and are both a member of the prominent, feuding families of Venona. Defying social custom and the dictates of their parents, the passionate young lovers perform a secret marriage ceremony but a string of misfortunes end the affairs in tragedy. There are characters that influenced the experiences of Romeo and Juliet.
The first character that leads to the death of the young couple is Capulet. At the beginning of the play, he tells Paris, whom he has chosen to be Juliet's husband to wait two years before he could try to marry her and even then, he declares that Juliet has to agree to the marriage. After Tybalt's death, Capulet changes his mind, agrees on a date (very soon) with Paris, and tells Juliet that if she does not comply, he will drag her to the church or throw her into the streets. Juliet, of course, is already married, and so is driven to extremes, through the Friar's plan—for without an option, she promises to kill herself.
The second character is Tybalt too eager to pick a fight, he wants to kill Romeo (for an imagined slight) but starts out taunting Mercutio. As they fight, Romeo enters and while he tries to stop the fight, Tybalt reaches around Romeo and takes a cheap shot at Mercutio—killing him. It is at this point that Romeo goes berserk and kills Tybalt and for this, Romeo is banished from Verona, and the distance between the couple causes a lack of communication which led to the tragedy.
The last character, it is Friar Laurence who blamed for the death of the two lovers , he is as impulsive, if not more than any other character, considering his station in life and age that should give him more grounding. While he counsels both Romeo and Juliet against acting in an impulsive nature, he quickly marries the couple, hands Juliet a sleeping potion only after their brief conversation, and then rushes from the tomb knowing that Juliet will soon awaken. He, more than any single character is directly responsible for contributing to Juliet's despairing act of suicide, which in turn induces Romeo to do the same.
Summing up, we see that both the youth and the adults actually make the same foolish, emotionally driven, impetuous and rash decisions, showing us that so long one allows themselves to be governed by emotions, there is actually not a vast difference between age and youth.
Reference List
- Shakespeare, W. 2005. Romeo and Juliet. United States of America: ICON Classics.
