Romeo and Juliet – How does shakespeare express the theme of love and death throughout the play?

Romeo and Juliet
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Introduction
Montague and Capulet’s families played a very significant role in this play. Romeo and Juliet is a book about two young people who were lovers, but from the beginning, their love was destined for separation and destruction simply because of the rivalry and hatred that existed between the two families. Generally, love is a powerful emotion that is wanting, appreciating and accepting others and makes them feel good. In the play, Shakespeare portrays different ways in which love was demonstrated and later the theme of death. The paper explains different ways the author brings out the theme of love and death.
Themes of love and death
In the book, Shakespeare brings out some different types of love including love from parents, idealistic love and also love found among pals. The two lovebirds Romeo and Juliet clearly demonstrate what idealistic love is. Despite the many challenges they faced, they went ahead to demonstrate their affection to each other (MacKenzie, 2007). In the book, Romeo and Juliet always dreamt of being a perfect couple and this clearly shows a good example of real love. At one time Romeo feels that he can’t get over her former lover Rosaline, therefore, two of her friends Mercutio and Benvolio advised him to attend a party at Capulets home and try to find a new girl to console him. Here there is a theme of love in true friendship as the two friends want Romeo to get another girl. It shows that they care and their friendship is real.

To his friends, Romeo says “Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like a thorn”. From the quote, it is evident that Romeo is asking himself a lot of question whether love is gentle or not. In his mind, Romeo is convinced that love is rude, rough and at the end of it someone gets hurt. The reason to use this quote is that despite things going on well Romeo and Juliet dies a sorrowful death just because of the love that they had for each other.
The two young lovers did not know the true meaning of love simply because of the tender age. At the party, Romeo sees Juliet for the first time and it becomes love at first sight. In the book Shakespeare describes the love as powerful, brutal and an emotion that will capture individuals and holds them against their own world and at other times against their own lives.
Shakespeare also portrays the love between Romeo and Juliet by the use of images of light and darkness. Their love is seen as of another world. We can possibly see the love between Romeo and Juliet as the battle between responsibilities and actions that are demanded by the society and also those that are demanded by personal attributes of the individual. Romeo and Juliet appreciation of its darkness together with its light and privacy, their renunciation of their two names would make sense of two people who wished to escape the public world. However, the two lovers could not stop the night turning into a day (MacKenzie, 2007). When the two lovers commit suicide, it can be easily understood to be the ultimate night and the ultimate privacy. However, much they loved each other they always upheld the Christian part of it by not having sex before marriage. This did not go well as the last act of committing suicide is seen as unchristian. The author also describes their love in terms of appearance and sights. Their love is blind having met first in a ball where Romeo has an anti-face and he does not know well the identity of Juliet. Their meeting can be said to be love at first sight. The author used light and dark to pass his message mostly because during their meetings it was mostly at night and this is where love grew. Despite all what they felt for each other it all ends tragically when the two commits suicide.
Throughout the book, Shakespeare used the theme of death to continue with his story. He usually does this through actual deaths that cause some problems for the two lovers and also through dreams of death and premonitions. The two main characters in the play Romeo and Juliet exhibits some of the dreams and premonitions. The use of death is immediately seen during the prologue in the play “The fearful passage of their death-marked love”. This prologue offers the almost inevitable fate of the two characters of abrupt and short. In the play, we see one of the characters Mercutio gong ahead to curse the two houses while also foreboding some of the things to come. He is taken to a house that is directly opposite and within a short time, Romeo is informed that his friend has died. When the prince arrives, he is not happy and Romeo is banished to Mantua after the death penalty. The banishment of Romeo affects him and later in the play it leads him to greater problems (MacKenzie, 2007). As the play progresses Juliet dreams of bad things when she says “Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine” When the nurse enters the room and informs Juliet what has befallen the two men and she sees Romeo banishment like death. Romeo always desired to be dead if Juliet will not be part of his life. The most common cause of deaths in the play is violence which is a common characteristic of our era. In the play, none of the character dies a peaceful death as the death are mostly as a result of ferocious duels either with friends or family members.
Conclusion
Romeo and Juliet falling in love right from the beginning and at first make their love look more powerful and dramatic. Their love seemed destructive by putting their own lives in great danger. Most people believed that they the two lovers could not have died in such an emotional manner hadn’t they treated their precious love as the only thing worth living for in the world. The two were very young, and in most cases, the society sees young love as passionate and headstrong and not wise or realistic. Despite this, my feeling is that the author of the book deliberately made Juliet looks younger so as to portray her as the vulnerable victim. Despite a strong start in love, the book ends up on a sad note when the two lovers out of desperation from different forces in the society they decided to end their lives. The book is an encouragement to the young people in the society to always go for the best.
References
MacKenzie, C. G. (2007). Love, sex and death in Romeo and Juliet. English Studies, 88(1), 22-42.