Character Development In Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet

Long ago in the white-walled city of Verona lived a pair of young lovers, torn between a strife held by their families, a strife that splattered the streets of the previously immaculate city with blood. The tale of Romeo and Juliet is the popular Shakespearean play chronicling the tragic events of the two beloved, including their meeting, marriage, and eventual death. Over the course of the play, a total of six characters meet their demise, whether by poison, blade, or broken heart, but who is responsible for these untimely fatalities? Some suggest that this was simply an unfortunate occurrence of happenings, however, evidence suggests Romeo is to blame for his and Juliet’s death because of his impaired judgement, measly self control, and his

Juliet proves that emotion is the enemy of decision making through her actions with Friar Lawrence and her family. Capulet pressures Juliet to marry Paris at the church on Thursday, but Juliet persistently declines. After Juliet’s fight with Capulet and Lady Capulet, she states, “I’ll to the Friar to know his remedy. If all else fails, myself have power to die” (3.5.242-243). Juliet is explaining her last resort if all else fails. Instead of Juliet contemplating about her own death, she should have considered making other plans to resolve her issues. Additionally, Juliet goes on to to drink a potion that makes her seem dead for two days so that she will be able to be with Romeo, who was banished from Verona. Friar Lawrence gives the potion to Juliet saying, “Take thou this vial, being then in bed, and this distilled liquor drink thou off, when presently through all thy veins shall run a cold and drowsy humor, for no pulse shall keep his native progress, but surcease” (4.1.96-100). Juliet then accepts the potion stating, “Give me, give me! O, tell not me fear!” (4.1.124). Juliet lets her love for Romeo rein supreme and influence her to drink something that could kill her, just so that she could be with Romeo. Because Juliet caved in, she will pay for her mistakes

Romeo labels his feelings towards Juliet as “love”, although he has not gotten the opportunity to learn about her personality. This indicates that what he feels about her was entirely formed by her physical beauty rather than genuine feelings. Evidently, sexual desires seemed to be his ulterior motive for marrying her, instead of committing to love, care, and cherish her till death do them apart.

He sees love as much more than simply physical, like Mercutio does, but unlike Benvolio, he does not understand how to handle the heartbreak that comes with love. “Th’ exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine” (Act 2 Scene 2 Line 134). Right after meeting Juliet, Romeo sneaks to her house and asks her to marry him. This was simply out of impulse, as just before the party, he was still heartbroken over the fact that Rosaline wanted to become a nun. But as soon as he saw Juliet, he “fell in love”. “Here's to my love… with a kiss I die” (Act 5 Scene 3 Lines 119 and 120). Here, Romeo kills himself because he thought that JUliet was dead. He believed that he was so in love with her that he could not live without her. Romeos irrational behavior ultimately lead to his demise. Although Romeo is a male character, he was very sensitive and had many feminine traits. Shakespeare created Romeo this way to show that it was okay for men to feel attached in love, and so that anybody in the audience that felt similarly to him would be able to

I am heartbroken over the deaths of my master and friend, Romeo, Juliet, who brought Romeo great happiness, and county Paris, who I knew to be a very honorable man. I hope that this court session will bring justice for Romeo, Juliet, and Paris. To help bring this justice, I will truthfully tell you all that I know.

She allowed him to kiss her even though she was supposed to be focusing on Paris at the moment. When she found out that he was a Montague, she felt obligated to see him. Despite this, she pushed through the feeling and continued to see him. After they were married, Romeo was banished the same day. It wasn’t long before Juliet was confronted by her parents about not wanting to marry Paris. Since the nurse was no help, she decided to go to Friar Lawrence.He told her to take his special potion to make her seem dead and that she would wake up in 42 hours. Additionally, he would inform Romeo and confirmed the plan would work. She took the potion, but the news didn’t get to Romeo before Balthazar misinformed him of Juliet’s death. When Romeo killed himself, she woke up a few seconds after and found him dead. She stabbed herself with a dagger so she wouldn’t have to live without him. Juliet states, “Yea, noise? Then I’ll be brief. O happy dagger, This is thy sheath. There rust and let me die”(5.3. 182-184). No matter what happened, Juliet is still responsible for her own actions. Even though the events pushed her into the emotional state she was in, it was her choice and she decided to take that

about two young lovers living in Verona Italy during the 1300s.romeo belongs to the Montague

Although she did fall in love with him after only 12 hours of knowing him, they have very different lives. Juliet acted very childish when confronting Romeo about how she needs to go to sleep when he was talking to her on her balcony. Juliet says to Romeo, “Sweet, so would I. Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing. Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow That I shall say goodnight till it be morrow.” (2.2.182). Juliet was explaining that if they go to bed now, it will be morning sooner. This shows how childish Juliet is because when little kids are excited for something, their parents tell them to go to bed so morning will come sooner, and Juliet is acting like a little kid. Juliet is also stubborn, but won’t admit to it. Juliet thinks a little more than Romeo when it comes to situations involving their future. When Juliet says to Romeo, “It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden,” (2.2.118). This shows Juliet as stubborn, because she wouldn’t give in to Romeo at first. Although, eventually she did give into the peer pressure and she did marry Romeo. Juliet did find it a little suspicious that Romeo wanted to get married so soon into the relationship. This doesn’t last very long, but there was still a moment where she wasn’t positive about it. Juliet is a little smarter when it comes to decision making, but she still isn’t perfect at

A very important part of a film is to introduce and build characters, some do it a creative way, like the 1996 version, and others not so much. For instance the 1996 version uses a lot of indirect character development to introduce their characters. For instance in the 1968 version, when Juliet is first introduced the nurse goes into a long monologue about how wonderful and pure young lady she is, but the film skips over that entirely. Why would they skip over some integral character development, well its because they bring the same point across, but in a lot more of a subtle way, they put her into an angel costume. As everybody knows an angel represents beauty and virtue and effectively everything that the nurse says in her long monologue.

In the very last scene of the play, Romeo goes back to Verona to go lay with his “dead” wife – who is actually under the influence of a death-like drug – after hearing from his servant about her death. He travels with his trustworthy servant all the way to the tomb, but when they reach the tomb, Romeo asks for his servant to leave. Romeo, in his obsession-driven self, threatens to tear his servant limb from limb and scatter his remains across the graveyard if he doesn’t leave Romeo. This shows that Romeo is losing himself. He isn’t just a man who likes the idea of love, he’s a man who drives himself insane with the idea of love. Even though his love for Juliet can be summed down to beauty, his mind amplifies his feelings for her. Towards the end of Act 5, Scene 3, Romeo drinks poison to “join” Juliet in her death. Romeo even goes as far as to call the poison a cordial because he believes that it will heal him – heal his pain of not being with Juliet. This shows that, Romeo’s obsessive nature made his irrational decision seem rational. A relationship to heal him from his pain of Rosaline turned into a relationship that ended with death. His mind created his feelings towards Juliet, yet he continued to let himself be deceived. His made-up passion-driven obsession with Juliet ultimately led to his

First of all, Romeo has a tendency to be fickle. He is stricken with grief because the lady he loved had turned him away. However, the moment he laid eyes on Juliet, this all seemed to go away, with him saying “Did my heart love till now?” (I.V 59). If it weren’t for his behavior and sudden change of mind then the whole situation will have not of taken place. Romeo’s fickle nature added to his responsibility and should be held accountable

In the beginning of the play The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet when Juliet is first introduced, she is introduced as a young girl who is very faithful to her family, the Capulet family. In being faithful to her family, she is very compliant to the elders in her family. When the Capulet family's nurse calls Juliet, Juliet comes promptly. Then, she politely asks why she was called.

Romeo at the beginning of the play doesn't have the most level-headed understand of what real love is and as an example at the beginning of the play he has "fallen in love" with Rosaline and proclaimed that she is the perfect example of a women. Then later on completely forgets about her after seeing Juliet. This gives the reader the sense that Romeo is not very deep in his feelings for women and has a more superficial idea of what love is. Throughout the play though Shakespeare was able to convey how Romeo has matured in his attitude toward love from a shallow desire to a profound and intense passion. His fidelity toward Juliet is quite abstract in the sense that he loves her enough to commit suicide because he feels that he is not able to continue his lie without her which is a demonstration of his faithfulness and loyalty to her. In Romeo and Juliet Romeo is driven by his emotions a lot of the time when making decisions. Examples of him doing this are that because of anger compels him to kill Tybalt in a duel to avenge to death of his friend and despair causes him to take his own life upon hearing of Juliet's death. He also is driven many times by his love for Juliet. Love forces him to make the reckless decision to sneak into the garden of his enemy's daughter and risk death only to catch a glimpse of her. These intense depths of feeing are what drive the character in this story

j The pace of this scene is slow and constant; no one enters to liven

After talking to Romeo on the balcony, Juliet says to him, “If that thy bent of love be honorable, / Thy purpose marriage, send me word tomorrow.” (2.2, L. 150). In other words, she is telling Romeo that if he truly loves her, he must propose. She is not indirect about what she wants, and it is shown that she is determined to get it. Another situation is as Friar tries to get Juliet to leave with him, she says,“Go get thee hence, for I wilt not away....”(Act 5.3, Line 165). Even after the Friar begs, she sticks with her feelings and will not change her decision unless she wants to. At this moment in the story, Juliet is about to face her death, yet till the very end, she stays loyal to her own decisions. Lastly, when she tells her wishes to the Friar about her wedding, she shows her determination yet again as she says, “O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris, From off the battlements of any tower, Or walk in thievish ways, or bid me lurk. Where serpents are. Chain me with roaring bears, Or hide me nightly in a charnel house, O’ercovered quite with dead men’s rattling bones, With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls. Or bid me go into a new-made grave And hide me with a dead man in his shroud, And I will do it without fear or doubt, To live an unstained wife to my sweet love.”(4.1, L. 78). Though her parents want her to marry Paris, she would rather endure very risky situations. She is