When faced with hardships, people tend to not think of alternative ways to confront the situation and instead stick to the easiest thought that comes to mind. In the play “Romeo and Juliet,” a romantic tragedy written by William Shakespeare, the author suggests that when there are hard situations, characters are prone to give into solutions that are the first to enter their heads and don’t require a lot of thought. This, as a result, can lead to drastic outcomes. Throughout the love story, both Romeo and Juliet show ignorance and are quick to give up when they face hardships that come their way. They are shown to use immature and self-harmful solutions to their problems. By comparing the suicidal intentions of the two lovers, it can be shown how their death was caused by their foolishness and their impulsiveness.
Romeo shows signs of having no problem with death as a solution to an issue very early into the play. When Romeo has just recently met Juliet and is declaring his love for her at her balcony, Juliet warns Romeo of the guards that might kill him if they see him. He believes his life would be “better ended by their hate” than having to live and be wanting of her love. This makes him immature and impulsive at confronting a possible situation that hasn’t even happened yet and is easy to give up on other solutions. It shows that even if he wasn’t killed by the guards he would still confront her rejection with death (in this case suicide). He is blind to the fact that there are other ways to go about Juliet’s possible rejection without violent or self-harmful actions, such as spending more time with Juliet and talking to her more, showing her why he loves her and how committed he is by trying for years to win her love. His possible death at the beginning of the story was however avoided because Juliet ends up declaring her love for him as well.
In addition, Juliet also shows signs of using suicide as the answer to her problems upon meeting Romeo. Romeo was already introduced as a depressed and hopeless romantic character who craved the affection of a lover. Juliet, however, was seen as an obeying and respectful daughter who didn’t really seem interested in marriage but will go through with it to please her parents. However, upon meeting Romeo her caution and apathy in marriage quickly changes to her rather dying than having to marry anyone else, believing her “grave is like to be [her] wedding bed” if Romeo can’t be hers to love. This makes it clear that both Romeo and Juliet’s mind automatically goes to death as a solution to rejection. This possible attempt at suicide though was prevented at the beginning of the story like Romeo’s because she ends up getting married to him and having him to herself.
As a result, Romeo and Juliet both using hasty and impulsive actions to deal with the circumstances that they face impacted their fate and happiness, causing their story to end at a drastic and sorrowful note. For instance, Juliet risks taking the potion offered to her despite her fear of it actually killing her because she believes living and waking up the next morning to marry Paris is “not very like the horrible conceit of death.”Juliet shows immense determination to choose suicide as the solution to any problem that involves her being with anyone else besides Romeo. This impetuous confrontation to her problem makes her oblivious to other solutions she can think of, like sneaking away instead and meeting Romeo at Mantua herself (just like she snuck off before to get married to him). In addition, because of the way Juliet decided to solve this circumstance, Romeo plans to kill himself after hearing the misinterpreted news of Juliet’s death because, instead of taking the time to be logical and think for a bit, he’d rather kill himself and “lie with [her].” Romeo’s urge to die got in the way of him being with Juliet because if he hadn’t been so ignorant and rapid, he would have noticed the clear evidence of life on her, like the way her skin had colour and was warm, but his determination to die made him oblivious to that possibility, Thus sentencing them both to a horrible fate of death.
With all things considered, using self-harmful and violent solutions without thought is a sure way to lead to drastic outcomes. While the prologue suggests the two lovers' death is preordained, Romeo and Juliet’s fate could have been avoided if only they reconsidered their suicidal urges and instead took the time to think of better and less extreme solutions. The message that is suggested by the author is that people should be more mature about the way they confront the issue that faces them and shouldn’t be so quick to give up on any other possibilities. Using logic and understanding alternatives to a problem is the strongest way to confront difficult circumstances.
