The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare, is the tale of two lovers whose forbidden love for each other tear them apart. The play starts off like a fairytale when Romeo and Juliet meet and immediately fall in love. However, as the play progresses their love for each other ruins them and their loved ones. Their forbidden loves causes some of their closest friends to be killed and by the end, they are killed. Many people consider this play a tragedy and that Shakespeare's purpose was to share how love can ruin people. However, there is a huge amount of evidence that supports Romeo and Juliet being a comedy instead. For instance, the amount of hyperbole used, the amount of ridiculous scenarios, and the characters actions (especially …show more content…
The amount of ridiculous scenarios in this play make it hard to believe that this is supposed to be sad. By the time we have seen eight scenes with terrible timings and preventable mistakes, the audience starts to lose sympathy. When Romeo and Juliet first meet and find out they are children of enemies, Juliet says that if Romeo is really a Montague and he loves her she will “no longer be a Capulet.” This is obviously ridiculous because Juliet is only thirteen and can’t make decisions like this for herself. Plus, after they get married she does not run away with him and instead goes home and pretends nothing happened. If they had run away, Juliet would have not had to fake her death. Since she faked her death, they had to mail a letter to Romeo, because he was banished, saying that she has faked her death. Knowing that there is always a possibility that the mail might not get to Romeo, Friar could have sent someone to tell Romeo what was going on. This is ridiculous because they all knew where he was and instead Juliet took a magic potion that would make her have “no pulse.”She could have just run away. Then when Romeo kills himself, Juliet wakes up right after and says that she “will not away,” and then tries to kiss Romeo to poison herself because “(he) did not leave her any poison to help her die.” No one would have tried to do this and instead would have stabbed herself first. These ridiculous …show more content…
These actions and lines said and done by the characters are usually hilarious and make the audience want to laugh forever. One of the characters, Paris, is the most hilarious characters because he is so oblivious to what is going on. For example, Paris says, “Younger than she are happy mothers made,” when we first see him. By saying this we see how oblivious Paris is because he has just asked Juliet’s father to marry her and he said that she was too young and she had never met him. Juliet obviously would not be happy to marry Paris and have his child. Later on in the play, Juliet’s father allows him to marry her and when he is talking to the Friar he say that “(she) must love (him) on Thursday when they get married.”This is ridiculous because she has just told him that she does not really love him or wants to marry him. Lastly, when Romeo kills Paris, he literally says, “O, I am slain! If thou be merciful, open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.” Again we see that Paris is oblivious to the fact that Juliet never loved him and loved Romeo. Despite the title being The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, there is evidence of this play being a comedy instead. The hyperbole used, the ridiculous scenarios, and the way Paris among other characters act all make this play a little bit more comedic. I think that Shakespeare purposefully made this a comedy; however I think he might have failed at making it a comedy within a
When most people hear the names Romeo and Juliet, they usually think about a romantic story between two lovers. Yes, it is a story about two lovers, but it is not romantic considering that almost all the characters die, including Romeo and Juliet. Actually, this play, Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare, is considered a tragedy because of all the deaths that take place throughout the story. These two star-crossed lovers are to blame for the deaths, but not in the way someone might suspect. Although some people believe that love or lust killed all the characters in Romeo and Juliet, the real fault comes from the brains of Romeo and Juliet, which were undeveloped and prone to making bad decisions and taking
While leading up to the climax, the story gets increasingly ironic and tragic. Juliet is seen as dead, although Shakespeare has shown us earlier that she will reawake in two days, this particular piece of dramatic irony leads to the rest. Romeo, unaware of this plan due to a bit of cosmic irony, rides back to Verona, after hearing news of Juliet?s ?death.? When he gets there, confronted by Paris who believes he is trying to do some evil from hate, not there for love, he is forced to kill Paris who we realize has true unrequited love for Juliet. And in the end Romeo believing that Juliet is truly dead gives a ?kiss of death? and drinks the poison, believing he will finally be able to meet with Juliet in peace. In these last two acts a combination of dramatic and cosmic irony lead to the loss of Juliet?s, Romeo?s, and Paris?s life. The Irony also portrays the obliviousness and rashness of Romeo, he gets there and finds that Juliet looks and feels alive and warm after being ?dead? for nearly two days, yet
The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet is a story about two young crossed lovers. Their love was so strong that they sacrificed themselves for each other. The play which is set in Verona is a story about a long grudge between the Montague and Capulet families. This feud causes tragic results for the main characters in the play, Romeo, and Juliet. The children of each of these households fall in love then commit suicide.
Romeo and Juliet.. A tragic love story, or a myriad of poor decisions? It all depends on who you ask, and how you analyze the story. Many unfortunate events happen, nothing goes according to plan. So who’s truly to blame for this tangled mess of one tragedy after another?
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet ends in tragedy, because of some of Romeo and Juliet’s faults. Romeo and Juliet obviously rush into things. They do not listen to the advice of Friar Lawrence and end up paying the ultimate price. They also ignore the obvious factors that prohibit Romeo and Juliet from ever being happy together. Romeo and Juliet are also very immature and are groomed for social disaster. Romeo and Juliet are also not in love, but in lust. The combination of impatience, immaturity, and ignoring other’s advice leads to the tragedy of these two “star-crossed lovers.”
I believe Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy. Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy because of the extreme measures Romeo and Juliet took to disobey everyone in their lives. Romeo believed he loved Rosaline and then decided he loved Juliet at first sight. Love at first sight is false because you do not know somebody well enough to decide you love them. Romeo and Juliet is full of tragic deaths and murders.
William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet “...is deliberately about young love” as stated by Noah Berlatsky. He is indeed correct, as the entire play is about the two young lovers, Romeo and Juliet, and the actions they take to be together. However, is the drama about love overall, or is it truly about the destructive forces of love? Throughout the plot, the forbidden love between the two lovers cause this tragedy to become even more tragic by ruining family relationships with distrust ,thus resu lting in unnecessary deaths.
Most of Shakespeare's plays are conceived around a foundation in either tragedy or comedy, this polarity of themes allowing him to experiment with the full range of human emotions. Typically, an integral part of a Shakespearean tragedy is love, which is frustrated by a breakdown in order, or the character of the hero, due to some human limitation. The play Romeo and Juliet has all these typical characteristics. However, the resultant conclusion of events for the characters in this tragedy is adversely affected by the hands of fate, and not solely the product of human limitations. Fate in fact has a decisive role in the events of the play; it is a series of rapid coincidental events, which lead to the final tragedy.
Although Romeo and Juliet may not have been made with the intention of bringing laughter to people hundreds of year in the future, it’s hard to deny the amusement it can bring to us through its confusing language and odd clothing. It really depends on your personality whether or not you believe it to be a comedy or not. Though I do feel that the light mood in the beginning, over dramatic love, and odd language and clothing are good reasons that this tragic story is actually a love
A tragedy in literature is a tragic hero who falls due to a tragic flaw. Romeo’s immature personality has a huge effect on the end of the play. Romeo never thought before he acted, causing things to go wrong. For instance, before he killed Tybalt, he was angry in the moment not thinking about what would happen. When Romeo met Juliet he was in love with another girl. From here, his judgements eventually lead to his death. His tragic flaw is his unripe personality. Romeo enters this risky relationship as a young and carefree man, who doesn’t realize what could happen during this. The play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare fits perfectly with the definition of a tragedy, beginning with two hopeless teens and ending in their death by their own violation.
Romeo and Juliet both suicide after seeing each other dead. After Romeo hears about Juliet’s death, he goes to her tomb to see her one last time and kiss her before he suicides. “Here’s to my love. O true apothecary,/Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die”(V.iii.119-120). Romeo should have overlooked his quick thoughts of suicide, and should have realized how much he still had to live for. The aftermath of this action was that both Romeo and Juliet both end up dead in the final tragedy. After Juliet sees Romeo dead, she decides to kill herself with a dagger. “Yea, noise? Then I’ll be brief. O, happy dagger,/This is thy sheath. There rust, and let me die”(V.iii.174-175). This evidence is an example of the consequences that can occur after a hasty, sad-driven decision. If Romeo did not suicide while under the influence of his emotions, both Romeo and Juliet would have lived, and the ultimate, final tragedy of the play would have been avoided, but instead, Romeo’s emotions misguided him to choose the awful decision of suicide. These actions reveal how quickly sadness leads to horrendous repercussions due to the actions that it
Romeo and Juliet, a classic play by William Shakespeare, is known to many as a tragedy. But what makes this play tragic? Audiences favor this story because of the emotions evoked from a tale of love that sees two young souls torn apart. However, Romeo and Juliet when under my own definition of tragedy, does not resemble a tragic play. While the death of Mercutio and the deaths of Romeo and Juliet seem tragic, the story does not show one failing when trying to reach their full potential, instead the audience sees a forbidden love and death as a result, which does not demonstrate tragedy. Instead, Romeo and Juliet face flaws from within their families and society, forcing them to stay apart due to conflict. While both Romeo and Juliet try to reach the goal of being together and fail, the flaws of others cause the conflict, not the flaws of themselves. My definition surrounds the idea that the flaws of oneself leads to his or her demise, meaning that the play misses a key characteristic of the definition of tragedy. Both characters seem to die a “tragic death,” however, their death can only be considered sad or upsetting, especially to the audience. This play instead consists of somber scenes that show aspects of a tragedy, but not enough to place this play in a tragic category in the classic definition or in my own definition because the flaws of the main characters do not cause the fall of the characters as they try to reach their full potential. If a character who fell as a
In conclusion, Romeo and Juliet should be considered a comedy due to multitudinous over exaggerated errors, scenarios, and hyperboles placed in the play. Since the beginning, the death of the two main characters could have been prevented if the Capulets and Montagues family had just gotten along or become more civilized. After all, ever since Romeo met Juliet at the Capulet’s party, many ridiculous events happened. Despite their love being forbidden, they vowed to get married. With this intention, Romeo asks Friar Laurance to be their priest and wed them. Not long after, Juliet’s father, Lord Capulet, told Juliet that she must marry Paris or he will disown her. Because of that, she begged Friar Laurance to help her. If he doesn’t, she swears
Although many Shakespearean plays are very similar to one another, two stand out from the rest as sharing a great deal in common. Specific, solid parallels can be drawn between Shakespeare's plays "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Romeo and Juliet." The themes and characters are remarkably similar in many aspects. Firstly, both plays highlight the stereotypical young lovers - Hermia and Lysander in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and Romeo and Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet." Secondly, both plays are very ambiguously categorized. By this I mean that each could have been a tragedy just as easily as a drama (with a few minor modifications). By definition, a tragic play is a play in which the main character has a fatal flaw that leads to
"Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none."William Shakespeare. The genre of the play Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy and it is written by William Shakespeare. The reason this play is a tragedy is because during the whole play there was always a problem that occurred weather it was in the beginning middle or end of the play. The story has two main characters that fall in love but, the problem is their families hate each other and they have to hide their love for each other. These two characters are named Romeo and Juliet also the title of the play. Romeo is a Montague and they are the rival family of the Capulets, the girl Romeo is in love with(Juliet)is a Capulet. Romeo and Juliet met at a party the capulets where throwing a party that Romeo and a couple of other Montagues went to so they could go out and have a fun night because Romeo had been heartbroken about a girl who doesn't love him back. As soon as the Montegues get to the party Romeo see Juliet and they start to flirt and at first Romeo didn't know Juliet was a Capulet but then he saw her mother lady Capulet and soon they both found out that their families where rivals.