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Romeo And Juliet Analysis

Decent Essays

In ‘Romeo and Juliet’ Shakespeare plays with the audience’s view of Romeo by initially presenting him as in love with Rosaline rather than Juliet. His hyperbolic and dramatic language depicts him as a young lover who is in love with the idea of love. This means that his change into a tragic and ‘star-crossed’ lover is much more dramatic and unexpected. Shakespeare portrays Romeo as almost two different characters. At times, his romantic side is conveyed through his loving actions towards Juliet but other times he seems impetuous and impulsive by the many foolish decisions he makes, such as killing himself just to be with Juliet. Throughout the play, the presentation of Romeo changes to a great extent and that is what I will be talking about in this essay.

At the start of the play, Romeo is presented as a hopeless romantic, who loves someone who can never really love him back. The love that he feels towards Rosaline seems to be based on her looks, beauty and materialistic desires. This shows how Romeo’s love for Rosaline is false and unreal. He is depicted as being very dramatic and over the top; this contrasts greatly with the more genuine love of Romeo and Juliet. Romeo illustrates his idea of love as a battlefield using military terms to describe the ways in which he has tried (and failed) to win over Rosaline: “She will not stay the siege of loving terms/Nor bide th’ encounter of assailing eyes.” Shakespeare repeatedly describes how similar battles of love and battles

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