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Unrequited And True Love In Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet

Decent Essays

By Ujvala Vemuru

There are many types of love in the world. Romeo and Juliet is a dramatic tragedy written by William Shakespeare in 1597. Romeo and Juliet is a play about two star-crossed lovers who because of their feuding families, can never be together, and later kill themselves. Through the use of oxymorons, imagery, metaphors and characterisation, Shakespeare conveys the themes of unrequited and fake, contractual, maternal and romantic love.

Shakespeare uses tone and oxymorons to express the idea of unrequited and fake love. In Romeo and Juliet, Romeo falls “in love” with Rosaline, but Rosaline does not return his love. Romeo’s love towards Rosaline seems very pitiful and mopey, seeing as he discusses his love in a very negative tone. “Ay me, sad hours seem long.” (1:1:153) Here love is represented as a negative emotion. Because his love did not work out, it shows to the audience that is it not true love. This is because if it is in fact true love (like Romeo believes it is at this point of the play) it would be budding from both sides. Shakespeare uses oxymorons, such as “Why then O brawling love, O loving hate!” (1:1:168) to communicate Romeo’s confusion. This is most likely due to Rosaline not reciprocating his love. Through the use of oxymorons, Shakespeare shows that Romeo’s love towards Rosaline is quite unrealistic as Romeo has not even met Rosaline. When Benvolio asks Romeo what was wrong, Romeo does not respond with a straight answer. “In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.” (1:1:119) He mentions a girl, but nothing about Rosaline herself. The audience is therefore positioned to reject this type of love …show more content…

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