"My only love sprung from my only hate."
In the play Romeo & Juliet, “A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life… [to] bury their parents’ strife (prologue).” The play revolves around the love shared by both Romeo and Juliet. Their love is doomed right from the beginning because of their respective households, where “From ancient grudge break to new mutiny (prologue).” Romeo and Juliet’s death marked love unites the families in an unexpected way.
This unity and harmony is brought about by the deaths of both Romeo and Juliet. Right after Juliet finds out that her father has arranged her marriage to Paris without her knowledge she feisty protests. She is then given an ultimatum to either marry Paris or be thrown out and denounced as a Capulet. She frantically begs her father to change his mind but the father only gets annoyed and insulted. Juliet is strongly against the marriage because she had already fallen in love with Romeo and they have eloped. Capulet strongly believes her daughter should have not a brain of her own; she should do whatever she is told without objections regardless of what she wants or believes. When Juliet voices her reservations about the marriage, Capulet belittles/degrades Juliet by calling her, “green sickness carrion….baggage…tallow face (3.5.160).” He even wishes Juliet had not been born just because she used her brain. Capulet’s misogynous views become ever more apparent when he calls the nurse a, “mumbling fool (3.5.183)” and ridicules her opinions.
Juliet proves to be both a true lover and a smart fighter at the same time. She decides to marry Romeo first without her parents’ approval therefore making it impossible to be forced to marry Paris. When Juliet awakens from her somber in her family’s tomb, and sees that Romeo is dead, she fatally stabs herself.
The final depiction of Juliet leaves the reader on the precipice of questioning Shakespeare’s true intention; whether this final depiction was to display the immense love Juliet had for Romeo that she is willing to die for it or to expose the weakness and frailty of Juliet and by extension women.
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