Romeo and Juliet are to Blame for Their Own Deaths
Shakespeare is said to be one of the greatest sonnet and playwrights
of the last millennium. In this assignment I am going to explore and
write about one of Shakespeare's most famous and talked about plays
"Romeo and Juliet". Shakespeare didn't only write tragedies (Romeo and
Juliet is a tragedy as we will see in throughout this task). He also
wrote comedies, sonnets, love and many other different styles of play.
Throughout the assignment I am going to delve deeply and go into
detail about every aspect of the statement "are Romeo and Juliet to
blame for their own deaths?" In order to come to a strong conclusion I
am going to look into characters and their roles, language,
ideas/themes and structure.
Shakespeare was born on April 3rd 1564 and was raised in Stratford
upon-Avon. From an early age Shakespeare showed a creative flair and
genius for story and play writing. After many successful plays nearing
the end of his second period Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, the
play of discussion in this task. Having said this Shakespeare never
actually invented the idea of the play Romeo and Juliet, several
writers from Italy, France and Britain had all written plays about two
lovers from opposing families. Despite this Shakespeare made a very
good adaptation and that is why his is the most famous play of the
several previous attempts.
In order to understand this question it would be helpful to have some
background information on the play and its contents. The very first
scene of the play gives the audience an idea that there is a conflict
going on in the city of Verona between two families, the Capulets and
the Montagues. There is no indication of how long the confrontation
had been going on, but we do learn that servants of the families are
willing to risk their own lives for the glory of their family and
hatred for the other. This gives us an idea that this was perhaps an
ancient rivalry with a lot of passion and hatred amongst the two
sides.
Within the family of the Montagues there is a child, his name is Romeo
and him along with the child of the Capulets, Juliet, are the main
focus of the play. To get an idea of the family tree these diagrams
will help.
Capulet and Lady Capulet
Juliet (daughter)
Nurse Cousin Capulet Tybalt
(To Juliet) (Juliet's Kinsman) (Cousin)
Peter Petrucio
(Servant) (Friend of Tybalt)
Montague and Lady Montague
Romeo (son)
Benvolio Mercutio Balthasar
(friend) ( friend) (servant)
Within the first act the heirs of both families Romeo and Juliet have
met kissed and fallen in love. "Sin from my lips, O trespass sweetly
urg'd: Give me my sin again". Only by the end of act 1 do they realise
they are the heirs of bitter enemies.
In act 2 Romeo climbs into the...
