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Similarities Between Love And Hate In Romeo And Juliet

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Many situations have two sides: black or white. There are gray areas, but people often have trouble meeting in the middle of both extremes. Evil and hate are often associated with black; good and love are associated with white. Humans are dual creatures who cannot be one thing or the other; one cannot love without hating or be good without having evil desires. In literature, characters are used to portray the existence of duality. Romeo, from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, is a prime example of a character who ponders the duality between love and hate. He feels as if his “love” for Rosaline (a nun in training) is physically harming him, saying, “Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.” …show more content…

Robert Louis Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde is about the double existence of good and evil in man. “Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied; and vice sometimes by action dignified.” (II iii) He created a potion to separate his good self from his evil self. Jekyll was able to avoid guilt by committing crimes as Hyde. Hyde is Jekyll’s mask; as Zimbardo says in the article Why Good People Do Bad Things, “You minimize social responsibility...Nobody knows who you are, so therefore you are not individually liable.” The despicable alter ego retreats into Jekyll after he has committed his crimes so that the police can’t find him. Shakespeare used the concept of masks in a different sense than Stevenson; he used the mask of night as the setting of Romeo and Juliet’s love. Romeo acknowledges this fact, declaring, “I have night's cloak to hide me from their sight; And but thou love me, let them find me here: My life were better ended by their hate, than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.” (II ii) Night is the only time they can see each other because of the enmity between their families. Friar Laurence thinks this is going to end badly, but he marries the young lovebirds because he believes the heavens will “[smile upon] this holy act, that after hours with sorrow chide us not!” If their children are married together, he hopes that Lord Montague and Lord Capulet will end the feud. Sadly his plan failed, and only the deaths of the lovers were enough to

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