Romeo and Juliet tragedy - the culprit?
Uploaded by quebec15 on Oct 16, 2002
Romeo and Juliet Text Response
Rome and Juliet is written by William Shakespeare. It is a story about two lovers called Romeo and Juliet; whose lives end in a tragedy. There are many reasons why the tragedy occurred. The feud between the Capulet’s and the Montague’s is largely responsible for the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. However, there are a number of factors or characters that may be considered to be responsible. Some characters unintentionally influenced the course of the tragedy by not thinking rationally and having only good intentions. However, other factors and characters are responsible for the tragedy by acting out of vengeance and hatred.
The feud between the two households, Montague and Capulet, underlies the entire tragedy and is the most responsible for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. The feud was the setting of the tragedy. Without it, Romeo and Juliet would never have had to keep their marriage and love a secret. The story expresses this through part of the opening chorous,
“The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love, And the continuous of their parents’ rage, which, but their children’s end, nough could remove,”
The feud aggravated the characters to express anger towards their enemies, which resulted in fights that ended fatally. When Tybalt saw Romeo at the Capulet’s party, he immediately wanted to kill him, and he didn’t stop to think that Romeo wasn’t doing anything wrong. When Tybalt confronted Romeo and Romeo talked of peace, Tybalt couldn’t accept peace. In his mind Romeo was a Montague and a Montague is an enemy. If the feud had not existed, then Tybalt would have had no reason to approach Romeo to kill him hence, starting a chain of events which ended in the deaths of Romeo and Juliet.
The distant relationship between Juliet and her parents was partly responsible for the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Juliet’s father never took to the time to understand his daughter and he presumed that she’d always be obedient and respect whatever he had to say. When Juliet did not accept her father’s plans to marry Paris, he became furious and said,
“Hang thee, young baggage! Disobedient wretch! I tell thee what, get thee to church o’Thusday, Or never after look me in the face.”
This resulted in Juliet having to take desperate measures to avoid marrying Paris. If Juliet’s parents had listened and tried to understand their daughter, they would’ve realised she was in love...