Fictional Characters as Role Models Would Romeo and Juliet be good role models for teenagers today? Romeo and Juliet is a tragic play written by William Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet are two teenagers who fall in love but come across problems that will prevent them from being together. One of the main problems they face is that both of their families hate each other. In order for them to be together, they make reckless decisions that put themselves in danger. So would Romeo and Juliet be good role models to young teenagers? Romeo and Juliet are both terrible role models, because they disobey their parents, make bad decisions, and put themselves at risk by following dangerous plans. Romeo and Juliet are terrible role models …show more content…
After getting in a fight with Tybalt, Romeo is banished from Verona and Juliet has to find out a plan to avoid getting married to Paris and to be with Romeo: “‘Take thou this vial, being then in bed, And this distilled liquor drink thou off’” (4.1.95-96). Juliet follows a plan to drink a liquor that will knock her out under forty-two hours. During that time Romeo is supposed to get her while she’s in her tomb, however he is misled into thinking she’s dead. Therefore he kills himself. Even though Juliet knew the plan might not work, she followed it anyways. Juliet was aware of the dangerous consequences both of them could face, but agreed to do it out of desperation. Also out of desperation, Romeo also followed the plan to get a letter that would tell him about with Juliet: ‘“In this resolve. I'll send a friar with speed determined, quickly To Mantua with my letters to thy lord’” (4.1.126-127). In the end, Romeo never got the letter, which then lead to a misconception of Juliet being dead. Without questioning a poorly thought out plan, Romeo still agreed to follow it. This shows how Romeo and Juliet put themselves in danger and ended up facing the consequences. This goes on to show how they are terrible role
First of all, Romeo has a tendency to be fickle. He is stricken with grief because the lady he loved had turned him away. However, the moment he laid eyes on Juliet, this all seemed to go away, with him saying “Did my heart love till now?” (I.V 59). If it weren’t for his behavior and sudden change of mind then the whole situation will have not of taken place. Romeo’s fickle nature added to his responsibility and should be held accountable
From the very prologue of Romeo and Juliet, we are informed by Shakespeare that these two “star-cross’d lovers” are going to “take their life”. For the rest of the play, we are left to observe how they kill themselves and who or what leads them into doing so. However, placing the blame on one person or event would be impossible, as nobody was directly responsible for their demise. Instead, everything that could possibly have gone wrong did go wrong. Although both Romeo and Juliet end up thinking it was their own decision to kill themselves, there were many other factors that unwittingly forced them into the situation they eventually found themselves.
For example, his replication of a potion leads to the unfortunate climax. The potion mimics death by making the bearer to be “depriv’d of supple government, shall, stiff, and stark and cold appear like death” (IV.i.103-105). By pretending the death of Juliet to the rest of the Capulets, it leads to a chain reaction that caused the “Romeo and Juliet tragedy”. In addition, the friar has sent Romeo to his doom by failing to send the young man his letter indicating the faked death of Juliet. The friar sincerely believes that it “shall free thee [Juliet] from this present shame” (IV.i.118). However, Friar Laurence’s plan backfires. His failure causes Romeo to be suicidal which succeeds in the end of the play. Friar Laurence refuses to be concern of the traumatised Juliet in favour for his cowardice. As Juliet wakes up from her deep sleep, the first thing she sees is the body of her lover, Romeo. Friar Laurence does not acknowledge her shock as he pleads to leave the catacombs carelessly. He tries to convince Juliet to flee and to “stay not to question” (V.iii.58). He makes a bad decision in intensifying her shock by acting with no remorse and not standing up to face the consequences. As a result, Friar Laurence is emphasised to make poor decisions that lead to Romeo and Juliet’s
Many teenagers make bad decisions, and act in a way most adult would say is unintelligent. Romeo and Juliet was a story about two feuding families with the same wealth living in Verona. After a big fight Prince Escalus tells them that if there is another fight they will be killed. Later that night Romeo meets Juliet at her father’s party and they both fall in love, after the party Romeo talks with Juliet about getting married and she agrees to have the wedding the very next day. After the wedding the two families get into another fight. Due to the fight Mercutio and Tybalt gets killed. Romeo who was also fighting was sentenced to banishment even
It is while growing up that children and teens are most vulnerable. Because they lack life experience, foresight, and the ability to think clearly, young people often make decisions that are unwise and even downright harmful to them or others. This lack of maturity and its consequences is demonstrated in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, where teens’ poor decisions lead to the deaths of many. The play’s tragic end is not the result of deliberate malicious actions, but rather the consequence of the emotional, untamed impulsivity of the play’s younger characters. In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the reader experiences how the impulsive nature of the youth results in them making poor decisions that can end in tragedy.
As the story of Romeo and Juliet further progresses, Romeo’s true character becomes more and more apparent; he seems to act solely by impulse. Romeo acts moreso with his emotions, and sudden thoughts than his brain which stores reason and logic. This causes for tragedy and unfortunate circumstance by the end of the poem. This shows how impulsive he is in most of his decisions and how he tends to be very dramatic in everything that he does. When Romeo discovers that Juliet is dead, he almost immediately dramatically decides to drink poison, to kill himself. “Here’s to love, O true apothecary, thy drugs are quick - thus with a kiss I die.” Which shows how quickly he makes wrash and dramatic decisions without thinking it through. If Romeo had not been so careless and impulsive in his decision, Juliet would have awoken and they would both still be alive.
In William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, many characters meet their tragic end as a result of a plethora of factors, from old rivalries to new love. It is a tragic story of two lovers, destined to complete each other, but also to end a bitter feud through their deaths (Prologue.3-6). However, if the blame had to be ascribed to one person in particular, that person would be Romeo Montague. Throughout the play, Shakespeare showcases Romeo’s irrationality and poor decision making, leading to the gruesome deaths of his loved ones. Romeo is most to blame for the tragic slew of deaths because he is oblivious, quick to act, and too urgent in his relationship.
Taking Responsibility for the Deaths of Romeo and Juliet in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
Teens in the stage of growing up needs the trust and support from their family and friends to be able to survive in this world. Most teens are like puppets who become the person that their parents want them to be, but as they mature into adults, they have their own desires and ways of thinking, which enable them to break free from the puppet control and become who they really are. In the play Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare, the playwright used the Nurse, Lord Capulet, and Friar Lawrence to show how taming the wills of the teens and forcing their wishes upon them could turn the play Romeo and Juliet into a tragic love story.
4. Shakespeare doesn't idealize Romeo and Juliet. He is careful to remind us that their love is destructive partly because it fails to see life as it really is. Romeo and Juliet do not act with caution, patience, or wisdom. They act on impulse and in haste--and they get bad advice. Answer the following questions for this argument:
Romeo and Juliet is a fictional love story written by William Shakespeare in 1597. The book is about two star crossed lovers who fall in love, but in the end they are both met with death along with many of the other characters in the story. Many people have different views on who Is responsible for the death of Romeo and Juliet. The story has many controversial scenes and the characters can be portrayed differently depending on how you look at them. In this essay I will be explaining who is responsible for the death of Romeo and Juliet. I will be choosing three characters out of the book and will be going into their perspective on whose fault it was.
First, both Romeo and Juliet can be responsible of their own deaths if you think about it. Both of them were young and looking for someone who could care for them and give them attention. They were unwise of their actions and hadn’t really thought things out when they wanted to marry
They’re parodied, sometimes even demonized in the media for their type of typical teenage behavior. They take risks, they’re sometimes moody, they’re very self-conscious.” (Doc A). The intellect of teens is evidently the reason for Romeo and Juliet taking all the risks. As they both were still teens, they more willingly took risks to spend as much time with each other as possible, which resulted in their deaths. However, they were both self-conscious as Blakemore said as they knew when to separate and leave or when to kiss or not kiss. Furthermore, they both may have committed suicide as a result of going into depression because initially, Romeo thought Juliet was dead and ended up drinking the poison. Later on, Juliet had woken up and realized Romeo had killed himself which brought her into a state of depression and ended up stabbing herself. Furthermore, Blakemore mentions that students are more likely to take risks when compared to mature adults: “We know that adolescents have a tendency to take risks. They do.
Immediately after he heard that Juliet was “dead,” Romeo cried, “Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee tonight./ Let’s see for means. O mischief, thou art swift/ To enter in the thoughts of desperate men!/ I do remember an apothecary.” Feeling hopeless and desperate without Juliet, Romeo made the impulsive decision of buying a deleterious potion in order for him to die beside his lover. His hasty manners caused him to make an abrupt choice of committing suicide in the spur of the moment. Because Juliet woke up moments later only to find Romeo dead beside her, she too, felt that life was unbearable without her lover and ended up stabbing herself. Had Romeo patiently thought through his actions instead of violently acting on impulse, both he and Juliet could have lived. Therefore, their deaths was not a result of fate, for Romeo had hastily decided to poison himself before he could receive the message of the hoax and Juliet ultimately chose to stab herself once she woke up to see that Romeo had misunderstood the situation and killed himself beside
Even though the plan is dangerous because Romeo is exiled so he could be killed, Juliet may wake up before Romeo comes, and more, he still makes them go through it, which proves he is an atrocious