Preview

Themes, Motifs & Symbols in Romeo and Juliet

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
2497 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Themes, Motifs & Symbols in Romeo and Juliet
Themes
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
The Forcefulness of Love
Romeo and Juliet is the most famous love story in the English literary tradition. Love is naturally the play's dominant and most important theme. The play focuses on romantic love, specifically the intense passion that springs up at first sight between Romeo and Juliet. In Romeo and Juliet, love is a violent, ecstatic, overpowering force that supersedes all other values, loyalties, and emotions. In the course of the play, the young lovers are driven to defy their entire social world: families ("Deny thy father and refuse thy name," Juliet asks, "Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, / And I'll no longer be a Capulet"); friends (Romeo abandons Mercutio and Benvolio after the feast in order to go to Juliet's garden); and ruler (Romeo returns to Verona for Juliet's sake after being exiled by the Prince on pain of death in II.i.76–78). Love is the overriding theme of the play, but a reader should always remember that Shakespeare is uninterested in portraying a prettied-up, dainty version of the emotion, the kind that bad poets write about, and whose bad poetry Romeo reads while pining for Rosaline. Love in Romeo and Juliet is a brutal, powerful emotion that captures individuals and catapults them against their world, and, at times, against themselves. The powerful nature of love can be seen in the way it is described, or, more accurately, the way descriptions of it so consistently fail to capture its entirety. At times love is described in the terms of religion, as in the fourteen lines when Romeo and Juliet first meet. At others it is described as a sort of magic: "Alike bewitchèd by the charm of looks" (II.Prologue.6). Juliet, perhaps, most perfectly describes her love for Romeo by refusing to describe it: "But my true love is grown to such excess / I cannot sum up some of half my wealth" (III.i.33–34). Love, in other words, resists any single

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    How does love over power the characters and their lives? I think an example is when Romeo and Juliet commit suicide,…

    • 1074 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Romeo and Juliet is a play written by William Shakespeare that tells a story about to star crossed lovers who end up dying due to their love for eachother. It isn’t until after their death that their families realize how foolish their hatred for each other was. Throughout this play, many characters express the traits of love, hatred, and loyalty. Although many characters show these traits multiple times, there are some characters who express them the most. We see that Romeo expresses his love for others in many ways, Tybalt and his fiery hatred for the world destroys lives, and Juliet’s loyalty is strong that even death won’t break it.…

    • 382 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Romeo and Juliet” is a play written by Shakespeare around 1950, which celebrates the beauty of love whilst also exploring the destructive nature of pride - the tragedy is made all the more poignant because both these elements of human nature are incorporated. The play is mostly about how love, not pride can affect people’s emotions. Shakespeare shows how love can be beautiful yet destructive. The tragedy is created when love and pride work together to create doomed circumstances for Romeo and Juliet.…

    • 679 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The theme of love is predominant throughout the entirety of ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Many forms of love are incorporated throughout the play and displayed through the relationships of different characters. Romantic love between Romeo and Juliet is contrasted by a sensual perception of love in the play, while themes of familial love and friendship are discussed with regards to the superficial and unrequited love Romeo experienced with Rosaline.…

    • 1204 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The theme of love does play a pivotal role within the play “Romeo and Juliet, although the conflict also drives much of the action that occurs. The love of revenge and love between Romeo and Juliet are both evident throughout the play. If not for the conflict, this classic novel would be no more than a tedious love story. This love as a cause of conflict, is almost directly responsible for the tragic outcome that happens to the star-crossed lovers. The two themes, love and conflict all have their share of importance within the plays structure, and eventual tragedy.…

    • 655 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Love is defined as an intense feeling of deep affection. This is the feeling that the two teens, Romeo and Juliet has. In The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet have a love at first sight moment at a Capulet party. A couple of days later, they secretly get married. Later that day, Romeo is banished from Verona, their hometown because of a murder. Juliet and the friar make a plan for Juliet to live happily ever after with Romeo. This plan goes terribly wrong, causing Romeo and Juliet to both commit suicide since they could bare living without each other's love. Shakespeare uses a sonnet, many metaphors and imagery to demonstrate a theme that love is a very strong feeling.…

    • 386 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Have you ever been in love? Romeo and Juliet were two teenagers who fell in love that were ripped apart because of the difference of their name. The story shows many examples of how forceful love is. Love has the ability to change people, influence people, help people, and make people happier. Love was an exciting factor to Romeo and Juliet's lives. Over the course of the story, they became more lively and happier. They loved each other so much that they began sneaking out, lying, or even taking their lives. In modern times, people also greatly change and do crazy things with a taste of love. Romeo and Juliet also helped each other get through hard times, sudden deaths, and family issues at home. They can relate to the people out there who…

    • 162 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Across the Capulet’s ballroom, a girl with the name Juliet catches the eye of a boy named Romeo. Little do both Romeo and Juliet know that the relationship of what they thought was love would cost them their lives because of lust. Romeo and Juliet were said to have fallen in love at first sight, but as the story proceeds it spirals downwards into a pit of lust. In reality they were just looking to fill a missing part of their own broken heart. Love is where a person will take a bullet for one, where someone would jump in front of a train or even in the most extreme case, lay down their life for someone who means the world to them. However, lust is the exact opposite of love. Lust is just for looks and the pleasure of the eyes and flesh. It is selfish and only focuses on the benefits someone might receive from their so called significant other. Romeo and Juliet's fast paced relationship was not based on a strong…

    • 991 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Romeo and Juliet

    • 887 Words
    • 3 Pages

    ‘Romeo and Juliet’ by William Shakespeare is a romance tragedy play that displays the theme love. However, hate and fate are other themes that are also revealed throughout the play through various Shakespearean and film techniques.…

    • 887 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Romeo and Juliet is a classical story of love that everyone has watched, read or heard about.…

    • 461 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The main theme in Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet is that of love. Shakespeare uses various ways to display the theme of love, notably in the characters varied attitudes towards love and also the different language devices in the play. Characters attitudes towards love are sometimes developed and changed throughout the play, allowing for Shakespeare to show more opinions of love that may have been common in his day. From the play it is noticeable that actions and attitudes towards love have changed since the time of Shakespeare.…

    • 497 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Romeo and Juliet is a tragic love story where the two lovers meet their unfortunate deaths caused by their feuding families and forbidden love. The play encircles the vital theme of fate, as demonstrated by a series of events that occur.…

    • 343 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Romeo and Juliet is the greatest love story of all time. It was written in 1595 by William Shakespeare. It is so popular even today that it has been translated in over fifty languages. It is written in Elizabethan style and is a tragic revenge love story as those plays were the most popular at that time. In this essay I will look at: the themes of the play such as love hate; death and life etc, Shakespeare's intensions…

    • 631 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Love is unsurprisingly the play’s most overriding and most significant theme. The love that Shakespeare ultimately portrays in the play is a youthful lust that the kind of love that Romeo and Juliet display leads the star crossed lovers to enact a selfish isolation from their parent’s demands and expectations around them. Romeo and Juliet avoid their commitments to anyone else and choose to act selflessly only towards one another. Romeo and Juliet’s youthful lust is one of many reasons why their relationship grows so intense so quickly. Throughout the play, Shakespeare only describes Romeo and Juliet's love as a short-term burst of youthful passion. In most of his work, considering that no other relationships in the play are as pure as that between Romeo and Juliet, though, it is easy to see that Shakespeare respects the power of such a youthful, passionate love but also cries the impermanence of it.…

    • 461 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Romeo and Juliet

    • 1152 Words
    • 5 Pages

    'Romeo and Juliet' is a play set in Verona - the city of love. Love is a prominent theme that runs throughout the play and Shakespeare manages to portray every form of love. The courtly love tradition embodied in Romeo's infatuation with Rosaline, is ridiculed by Shakespeare. There is also the passionate, youthful love of Romeo and Juliet that contrasts greatly with the harsh reality of an arranged marriage. Shakespeare's main aim was to illustrate the tragedy of love but also the Elizabethan attitude towards love at the time.…

    • 1152 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays

Related Topics