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Theme Of Light And Dark In Romeo And Juliet

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Love is like fire, beautiful from a distance or even up close, but get too close or feed the flame enough and it will consume everything in its wake. In William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the two protagonists learn about this all too late. They start as lovers at first sight, but when the passion of love and the fury of hate prove too much for them to bear. Instead of the beautiful sunny life they thought they would acquire, they end up in a dark decrepit crypt, on their deathbed. Through their toils, they help us understand love and hate through light and dark; And how passion from these emotions can influence our decisions. Within the play, Shakespeare uses metaphors and imagery to show the contrasting nature of Romeo’s sadness and how Juliet is his light inside his dark depression. In Act 2 Scene 2 Romeo uses the metaphor of “It is the east and Juliet is the sun / Arise fair sun, and kill the envious moon,”(16). This is important because it shows how Romeo views Juliet. When we first meet Romeo in the play he is downcast and miserable, mainly because of the unrequited love he has for Rosaline. It puts him in a dark depression of which he sees no way out of. Thus, when he says “O she doth teach the torches to burn bright!”(13). He is saying that she is his only light in his darkness and he feels that without her light he cannot possibly continue on living. She means that much to him. Juliet is very similar in this regard, however she compares him to something else,

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