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Themes Of Love And Hate : William Shakespeare 's Romeo And Juliet

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Boucher 1 Thalia Boucher Ms. Yousaf ENG-1D1 2016-06-06 Themes of Love and Hate in William Shakespeare 's Romeo and Juliet “People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”-Nelson Mandela Romeo and Juliet is a play about two young lovers, whose love was for destruction from the beginning because of the hatred between the two families, Montagues and Capulets. Therefore, the themes of love and hate are very important in the play as the plot is driven by these two themes. Shakespeare brings out the love between the two rivals through Romeo and Juliet and their relationships with the Friar and the Nurse. I want to argue that in the play, the themes of love and hate are closely linked. To show this, I have selected some of the most important scenes in the play, which illustrate the idea that love and hate are closely bound together. The first example is the chorus, which is found at the beginning of the play, in the prologue. It is a short summary of what the play is about. The chorus is in the form of a sonnet and sonnets were often associated with love in the time of Shakespeare. However, the words of the chorus seem to emphasize the idea of hate although there are some words about love. “From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.” (Prologue, 3-4). These two lines are about the feud between the families. It shows that it is a feud,

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