Introduction
Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet takes place in Verona, Italy, in the 1300s, and follows the lives of passionate, impulsive, and often thoughtless characters as they become caught up in instincts stronger than themselves. Although the text is rich with colorful language and poetic beauty, what drives the story to its dramatic climax are the decisions made by the interacting characters. At almost every point of interest in the story, from the very first scene, issues of right and wrong are constantly at war with one another, playing out in a dynamic that drastically influences the fates of the characters at large. Paying close attention to the characters, their moral dilemmas, as well as their history, family backgrounds, and the society they live in, is something often required to understand how events in the story unfold as they do, and what important themes of the play are revealed. This essay plans to examine the roles, decisions, and consequences that the characters of Nurse, Tybalt, and Mercutio have on the unfolding of the drama.
Nurse is a special case when it comes to character analysis. She carries traits characterizing other characters but is still uniquely complicated to understand and read. Tybalt, who is Juliet's cousin, is generally viewed as a bright, proud, and daring character, with a tendency to act before he thinks and an inability to forget and forgive. In this essay, Tybalt's obsession with the height of the feud and its reasoning will be examined as well. Lastly, Mercutio is a fun-loving, articulate, and exciting young man who expresses discomfort and frustration with the ongoing feud. Romeo and Juliet often call Tybalt to action with dangerous consequences for Mercutio himself and others as well.
Save your time!
We can take care of your essay
- Proper editing and formatting
- Free revision, title page, and bibliography
- Flexible prices and money-back guarantee
Romeo and Juliet's Actions and Decisions
In Romeo and Juliet, the actions and marriage of Romeo and Juliet drive the narrative. From their first passionate meeting, the two build a connection that informs their every choice. As a result, they defy the expectations of their families and the roles and rules that society places on them—they receive the blame for the choices they make because of their choices in love.
In part, Romeo and Juliet’s actions both play into and against the image of the impulsive young lovers. Their decisions belie a number of truths: Romeo and Juliet are young, impulsive people who make decisions they do not understand very well for love, an emotion that they do not understand very well, and in so doing they choose to live (and die) in the most intense way they know how without really understanding the consequences. The two react passionately to the attraction that they build upon seeing each other at first, a reaction that both flatters and frightens them. Additionally, to defy their families, Romeo and Juliet defy their social (and divine) fathers by making a choice that distances themselves from their status and family. Their desperation to love also stems from the pressure from their families to marry others and the expectation that they will obey their parents. In so doing, Romeo and Juliet begin to take their destinies into their own hands—or seem to—and try to carve a place for themselves where they can celebrate and control their emotions. At the same time, Romeo and Juliet’s choices are guided by forces other than themselves. Given the mythic and fatalistic roots of the play, the two constantly play into their roles in a world in which the institution of marriage, sociability, and law itself exists as a concession to the destructive power of love.
Summing up the results of their love, the form of their romance is essentially rebellious and all-consuming. When considered romantically, the choices Romeo and Juliet make suggest the more beautiful aspects of rebellion and love, since it is the intensity of their relationship and love that gives them the courage and strength to embrace their own deaths. In defying the family, society, and a lifetime without one another, Romeo and Juliet suggest the existence of love over a society based on goodwill and civility, and in so doing transcend the troubling nature of their love, which is shown merely as an opposition of their families and the damage and destruction that results from that opposition. The consequences of the romance of Romeo and Juliet serve to prove the sentimentality of the play toward teenage romance. Their deaths very pointedly end the conflict and reify the damage that such conflict brings. This suggests in terms of love the kind of optimism that would classify Romeo and Juliet as a romantic tragedy, where the problems that a couple encounter in their love bring them closer in passion and devotion before tearing them apart, but their love remains both beautiful and perfect up until the end. In the play, idealized teenage passion suggests love as a neatly destructive force, albeit a force with moments of lightness and beauty that remain untouched by those larger structures of society that seek to define the lovers’ lives. Taken more cynically, the suffering of the lovers as a result of their choices is meant to create the tragedy that the play describes. In either case, the love between Romeo and Juliet is predetermined to end in ruin. The lovers become tragic heroes because, as young lovers, they account for the dual aspects of beauty and destruction that love brings into their lives. Love becomes a story, and the story becomes a tragedy because of the progress of the lovers through that story.
Friar Lawrence and the Nurse's Roles and Responsibilities
When analyzing the characters and motivations within a play, it becomes evident that the narrative could not exist without a specific character’s involvement. Two characters, in particular, hold the narrative together by solving various plot problems: the Friar and the Nurse. Once the characters become ensnared in Romeo and Juliet’s love, they are responsible for the way the narrative unravels. The Friar is responsible for Romeo's exile, Juliet's tomb, and his plans to erase the couple's mistake, while the Nurse is responsible for the couple’s marriage and death. Ultimately, or to a large extent, the play’s outcome can be attributed to the actions of the Friar and the Nurse.
The Friar is a mentor figure for a majority of the play, guiding Romeo and Juliet in difficult situations, saving Romeo from execution, and confiding in the audience about his secular beliefs. His intentions are undeniable since he compassionately states: “So smile the heavens upon this holy act, / That after-hours with sorrow chide us not.” The Friar’s primary responsibilities successfully merge the two and avoid the family feud. When he cannot reconcile the two households and project onto Juliet their inner hope for peace, he unravels and reverts to civic responsibility over morality. However, his acts, even from his initial position, begin to invite, if not encourage, chaos.
Comparative Analysis
For all the tragedy contained in Romeo and Juliet, one question remains: could these characters have done more to avert their destiny? Juliet seems to have had few options in her limited sphere of action. Her parents arrange the one chance she ever has for true love, but offer no guidance for how that might happen. Meanwhile, Romeo, on advice from others, could have gone directly to the Prince to reveal the plans after he learns of her plan to follow him to the grave. Of course, a shared vision between Juliet, Romeo, and the adults through whom responsibility is channeled would have made all the difference. Just one hint from the friar to the family on their first meeting about the rich dowry her marriage promises in the future would have ensured that Capulet would have postponed the marriage until Paris could be arranged.
Yet the reality is that they do all act in ways that lead to the tragedy, and the reader might well question if a different action ever was possible for any of them in this pressure cooker of emotions and impulsivity. Maybe that is precisely what makes the play so terrifying. In some ways, the only character who does seem to have a chance to act otherwise is Romeo, who actually possesses the agency to change the circumstances that threaten his destiny. There are chances to change actions and choices because people have the capacity to love, reflect, and regret. If only they were more aware and had more foresight about how their actions might affect the outcome of their individual pasts; perhaps, then, some hint of a way out of their destiny would become clear. This is the pathos of destiny: there is no way back in the world of Romeo and Juliet past an awareness of the possible choices they could have made. These what-ifs feed away at all of us, Romeo, Juliet, and the audience.
Stuck on your essay?
