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Romeo And Juliet Character Analysis

Decent Essays

Romeo is arguably the most important character in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. As the protagonist, he helps to drive the action. While this particular love story has often been simplified and typified, it is quite complex. Romeo himself is a complex character, bringing to bear many traits that help to influence the plot. In particular, Romeo is obsessive when it comes to love, he is reckless when it comes to many of his affairs, and loyal to a fault. These three characteristics are significant to the plot in Romeo and Juliet in multiple ways. Romeo is an obsessive lover from the beginning of the play all the way through the end. Though Shakespeare defined Romeo by his love of Juliet, this is not his first love interest in the play. Instead, he begins by loving Rosaline. He builds up Rosaline in his head, suggesting that she is the perfect woman. He believed that with Rosaline, he could have the perfect life and the ideal love story. Speaking of his love for Rosaline, after he accepts that she will not be with him, Romeo says, “Well, in that hit you miss. She'll not be hit With Cupid's arrow. She hath Dian's wit, And, in strong proof of chastity well armed, From love's weak childish bow she lives unharmed. She will not stay the siege of loving terms, Nor bide th' encounter of assailing eyes, Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold” (Shakespeare ACT, SCENE?). Romeo’s obsession with Rosaline comes to a head when she will not give him the time of day, and it drives him to try to create an ideal love with Juliet, who does seem interested in him. While Romeo and Juliet is billed the perfect love story between two people, it was truly the original obsession with loving Rosaline, and the unrequited advances onto her, that drove Romeo into the arms of Juliet and set the story on the trajectory it ended up taking. The recklessness of Romeo is what causes him to kill Tybalt and engage in other behaviors that are undertaken with something other than rational thought. Romeo originally did not want to be in a duel with Tybalt because he thinks of Tybalt as family in light of the marriage to Juliet. However, when Tybalt kills Mercutio, Romeo loses his calm sense and responds by killing Tybalt. It is in this that one

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