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Romeo And Juliet Character Analysis

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“A man's greatest pleasure is to defeat his enemies, to drive them before him, to take from them that which they possessed, to see those whom they cherished in tears, to ride their horses, and to hold their wives and daughters in his arms.”, said Genghis Khan, ruler of the Mongol Empire. Shakespeare expands on this idea in his famous novel Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet tells a tale of two “star crossed lovers” born of rival families whose feud is continued by men battling in the streets, the two lovers try to get married and start a life together which is halted by the violence of men when Mercutio, Romeo’s friend was slain by Tybalt and Tybalt was slain by Romeo. Romeo’s brutality caused for him to be banished from Verona, a plan was …show more content…

Romeo means that he will rip Balthasar from limb to limb if he doesn’t leave quickly and never comeback. Romeo uses “savage” to intensify the threat and show how serious he is about it. In this scene, Shakespeare shows how men rely on brutal behavior to get their way. Shakespeare also argues that men are expected to be competitive in society. Once Nurse, Juliets caretaker learns that Romeo has murdered Juliet's dear cousin Tybalt she retorts: “There’s no trust, no faith, no honesty in men; all perjured, all forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers” (III, ii, 85-87). After Nurse hears about the horrible things that men have done, referring to Tybalt and Romeo, she lets her anger by categorizing men into dishonest and untrustworthy behavior. Nurse’s use of “forsworn” and “disassemblers” implies that men have negative behavior and cause damage to society. In this scene, Shakespeare shows how the actions of men cause them to be seen as hostile and hindered, contributing to how society views men. This societal view of men is shown later in the Act when Friar Lawrence expresses how romeo should stop crying and “man up”: “Art thou a man? Thy form cries thou art: Thy tears are womanish, thy wild acts denote the unreasonable fury of a beast: unseemly woman in a seeming man” (III, iii, 109-112). Friar Lawrence describes how Romeo looks as if he was a woman, his tears look like a woman’s and his actions represent actions of

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