Themes in Romeo and

Juliet
Themes

 In Romeo and Juliet Love is seen in many forms: courtly,

physical, passionate, spiritual, platonic.
 The play highlights the complications of love, love is
explored as courtly, passionate, impulsive (irrational)
and restores social order; love rights all wrongs. Within
the play, love is an overpowering force that drives
Romeo and Juliet to their death.
 Unrequited love is demonstrated through Romeo’s,
melancholiac feelings towards Rosaline (Act 1 scene 1)
Love

 Love becomes a chaotic and overpowering force that

overthrows values, loyalty to family and rational
thought. Both Romeo and Juliet become consumed by
an uncontrollable passion.
“Deny thy father and refuse thy name” (2.2.)
“My only love sprung from my only hate!” (1.5.)
 “But my true love is grown to such excess/I cannot sum
up some of half my wealth.”
Romeo in Love

 Romeo begins the play in love with Rosaline, but his language in
these opening scenes shows us that his first love is less mature than
the love he will develop for Juliet. This couplet combines two ideas
that were already clichés in Shakespeare’s day: “love is blind” and
“love will find a way.” The clichéd expressions and obvious rhymes
which Romeo uses to express his love for Rosaline would have been
ridiculous to a contemporary audience, and Benvolio and
Mercutio repeatedly make fun of them.
 “Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still,
Should without eyes see pathways to his will.” (1.1.)
Unrequited Love for Rosaline

 When we first see Romeo, he’s acting lovesick, and he explains to

Benvolio that he’s in love with a woman who doesn’t return his “favor.”
Romeo doesn’t identify the woman here, but somewhere between this
scene and the next Benvolio learns her name, since in the later scene
he points out that she’s on the guest list for the Capulet ball: “At this
same ancient feast of Capulet’s / Sups the fair Rosaline whom thou so
loves” (I.ii.83–84). From this reference, it becomes clear that Romeo is in
love with a woman named Rosaline, and that she, like Juliet, is a
Capulet.
 In Act 1, Scene 1: Romeo tells Benvolio of his unrequited love for
Rosaline.
Unrequited Love for Rosaline

 In Act 1, Scene 1: Romeo tells Benvolio of his unrequited love for Rosaline.

 Benvolio then suggests that Romeo should try to get over Rosaline by
going to the ball and looking upon “all the admired beauties of Verona”
(I.ii.85). Benvolio insists: “Compare her face with some that I shall show, /
And I will make thee think thy swan a crow” (I.ii.87-88). Romeo follows
Benvolio’s advice to the letter. And although Rosaline never appears
onstage, she nevertheless plays an important role, since her rejection of
Romeo ultimately leads him to his first, fateful encounter with Juliet.
 In Act 1, Scene 5: Forgetting Rosaline, Romeo falls in love with Juliet at first
sight. Act 2, Scene 2: In Juliet's orchard the two lovers agree to marry.
Passionate Love

 “My only love sprung from my only hate,

Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love is it to me
That I must love a loathed enemy. “(1.5.)
 Juliet speaks these lines after learning that Romeo is a Montague. The
language of Romeo and Juliet insists that opposites can never be entirely
separated: the lovers will never be allowed to forget that they are also
enemies. Significanly, that Juliet blames herself for seeing Romeo “too
early.” Everything in this play happens too early: we learn what will happen
at the end in the opening lines, Juliet is married too young, and Romeo kills
himself moments before Juliet wakes. In Romeo and Juliet, love is a force
which can—and does—move too fast.
Passionate Love

 “My bounty is as boundless as the sea,

My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.” (2.2.)
 Here Juliet describes her feelings for Romeo. Like Romeo, Juliet
experiences love as a kind of freedom: her love is “boundless” and
“infinite.” Her experience of love is more openly erotic than Romeo’s: her
imagery has sexual undertones. Juliet is always more in touch with the
practicalities of love—sex and marriage—than Romeo, who is less realistic.
Where Romeo draws on the conventional imagery of Elizabethan love
poetry, Juliet’s language in these lines is original and striking, which reflects
her inexperience, and makes her seem very sincere.
Love

 The theme of love is central in the Romeo and Juliet. Their love is, passionate, sacred and
boundless. It affects all the characters in the play, for family, love is a duty, Mercutio is
more practical about love, while Romeo and Juliet, express a romantic and idealized
love, a love so powerful it brings death and restores peace.
 Love causes Romeo & Juliet to act irrationally:
Examples: Romeo abandons Mercutio & Benvolio to go to Juliet’s Garden;
Romeo returns to Verona after his exile by the Prince for Juliet’s sake
 Their love can also be seen as pure and spiritual. Their love becomes the sacrifice to kill
strife and hate between the two houses (Capulets and Montagues).Throughout their
interaction religious images of light are used to describe Romeo’s feelings towards Juliet.
Examples

 “Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptiz’d,” (Act 2, Scene II)
 “Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with
grief, That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she.” (Act 2, Scene II)
 “Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, having some business, do entreat
her eyes to twinkle in their spheres till they return.”
 “O, speak again, bright angel! for you are As glorious to this night, that is
over my head, As is a winged messenger of heaven.”
 “A grave? O, no, a lantern, slaughtered youth, for here lies Juliet, and her
beauty makes this vault a feasting presence full of light (Act 5, Scene III)
 Love between R&J is too powerful for words or definition: ‘But my true love
is grown to such excess/I cannot sum up some of half my wealth’ (2.6.33-
34)
 Death and violence are linked with the theme of love
 Love is blinding and is as overwhelming as hate can be.
 The passion between R & J is linked from the beginning with the
inevitability of death as the outcome. Example: Tybalt is determined to kill
Romeo at the feast at the same instance as Romeo falls in love with Juliet.
 R & J are constantly consumed with thoughts of death: ‘If all else fail,
myself have power to die’ (3.5.242) ‘By some vile forfeit of untimely death’
(1.4.112)
Parents and children

 The play explores how parents and children struggle to

make their own choices
 Juliet wants the freedom to make her own choices,
when her mother tells her of marriage she objects that it
is an honour she doesn’t want.
 Juliet’s relationship with her parents reflects youthful
innocence versus age and wisdom.
Parent Child relationship

 Juliet’s relationship with her parents shows what it was like for women in a
society ruled by men; men were seen to be superior to women, as women
had little rights. Women began life as property of their fathers; once they
became married they were passed on to the husband.
 Firstly, in Act 1 Scene 2 Lord Capulet is having a discussion with Paris
regarding Juliet, Paris wishes to marry Juliet, however Capulet says ?My
child is yet a stranger in the world? This means he thinks that Juliet is too
young to be wed; he also says they should wait two more summers before
she is ready to get married.
Social expectations of women