Love, Power, and Romeo and Juliet

Love, Power and Romeo and Juliet

The play Romeo and Juliet is a classic tale of friendship, love, betrayal, comedy, tragedy, and death. I t was written by William Shakespeare in and is considered one of his greatest tragedies. It has many different renditions and has been translated into many different languages. In the play “Romeo and Juliet” two young ambitious lovers put themselves in situations that would inevitably lead to their deaths. Was Romeo to blame or perhaps Juliet? Maybe the blame can be put on true love that would lead them to do certain things that were forbidden during those times. In the relationship between Romeo and Juliet many questions are formed within my mind such as who had more power in the relationship between Romeo and Juliet, was it Romeo, was it Juliet, or was it the Love between them. Perhaps gender played a role in who had more power in the relationship. In this paper I intend on exploring the answers to these questions that are lingering in my mind.
Throughout the play Juliet increasingly showed her power over Romeo, even though in those days, it was customary for men to show their power and dominance over women, this was not the case in this play. This could have been because William Shakespeare was married and had daughters. The first instance that Juliet shows her indirect power over Romeo was the very moment Romeo laid his eyes upon her. In scene one, act five Romeo says to a servingman, “What ladies that which doth enrich the hand of yonder knight”, “Oh she doth teach the torch to burn bright! It seems she hangs upon the check of night as a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear beauty too rich for us, for earth to dear!” This show power because earlier that day Romeo was mopping around crying about another young lady named Rosaline. When he saw Juliet he completely forgot who Rosaline even was and went out of his way to talk to Juliet even though she was part of the family that his family was in a feud with. Power was