Romeo and Juliet – a play of contrasts.

Romeo and Juliet – a play of contrasts.

The play, ‘Romeo and Juliet’ written by William Shakespeare, has many contrasts, all that cause a big impact in the play. We see it all throughout the play, but none more than love verses hate, mainly seen in both the Capulet’s and Montague families. We have both hate between the two families, and yet we see Romeo and Juliet being ‘star crossed lovers’, we see love in each individual family, and hate when they are put together.
In the prologue itself, there are many quotes that show contrast. One example could be, ‘From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, a pair of star-crossed lovers take their life’. This quote tells us that the children of two families who are foes (hate) were in love, before killing themselves because of their love. This shows contrast of love and hate, from the hatred between the families, and the love from the two children, Romeo and Juliet. Another quote from the prologue is ‘a pair of star cross’d lovers take their life’ which shows a contrast between life and death, from the life and love of Romeo and Juliet, to their killings themselves.
In act 1 scene 1, we see lots of contrast from Romeos speech. We see lots of the use of oxymorons, for example ‘O brawling love! O loving hate!’ are both examples of oxymorons, and so contrasts, as he is opposing hate, with love. This is a very large contrast, showing how negative Romeo is, even though he says he is in ‘love’ with Rosaline, which is meant to be positive, he has still a large contrast in the ways which he is meant to feel. There are many more that he continuously lists, like, ‘O heavy lightness! Serious vanity! Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms! Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!’ just showing how confused and contradicting he is. This is effective in the play as it really shows what Romeo feels, and really allows us to understand what Romeo is like, and how much he changes throughout the play, from being depressed with his love for Rosaline, to showing how happy he is when he falls properly in love with Juliet.
We see contrasts in-between love and hate between the families, when we see the quote, ‘from ancient grudge break to new mutiny’ which tells us that there is an old rivalry between the two families, who had old hatred for years, and new fights are emerging. This conflict between the two families are different than the love between the families, as we see that in the individual families when people are willing to fight and end up getting hurt just to uphold their families reputation and dignity, as well as sticking up for their honour.
In conclusion, there are many examples of contrasts in Romeo and Juliet, which makes it a general play of contrasts. From family feuds, to family love. Lots of the contrast is especially seen through relationships between the characters, without which we wouldn’t be able to see all the love and hate that is going on. Even within the first few scenes we see so much contrast.