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Romeo and Juliet Character Analysis

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English Controlled Assessment: Romeo and Juliet Today, the name 'Romeo' has come to mean the word 'love' because of his important role in the most famous love story. 'Romeo and Juliet' is a tragedy mainly because of Romeo's character, which is what I will be writing about in this essay. We see Romeo as a sombre, impetuous and immature character in the early part of the play, but many aspects of his character seen in the early part of the play are not consistent as he does change a lot throughout the course of this play. In Act 1 Scene 1, Romeo thinks of love as a negative feeling. He described it as ‘a choking gall' that can suffocate you slowly and ‘a madness most discreet' which is violent and destructive. This gives us the idea that love can kill you in the most painful way, really emphasising that love is forceful and destructive. He also describes it as ‘a smoke' suggesting that it can make people blind. The word ‘smoke' also implies that you won't think about anything except love as the smoke will mist all your thoughts apart from the love you feel, making you blind. He also feels that love is a ‘heavy burden'. The word ‘heavy' implies that love is forceful and will weigh you with stress and worry. He clearly compares the idea of love with darkness. However, this is not consistent as he compares Juliet to ‘a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear' later in the play, which presents Juliet as a bright light in the darkness. This contrast clearly shows that he is now thinking of

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