~
“Romeo and Juliet” is a tragedy, written by the renowned Shakespeare in the 1600’s, which has remained a popular play for many people today. It tells the story of two star crossed lovers whose fleeting romance is ended by tragedy. The reason that this play is so appealing to audiences’ today lies within the main themes of the play – love and hate, death and fate. Because of the enduring the components of these themes, the lessons and experiences found in the book can be easily relatable to the people of our time. The themes of love, which we will see comes in many forms, are all easily related to situations that many people will face in our times. Hate is also a theme which has continued from Shakespeare’s time to now and largely effects communities today. Death is a theme that everybody can relate to, and the reasons for the deaths in Romeo and Juliet can also be applied to certain people’s death. The theme fate is not so easily applicable to today’s society as the other themes, but there are many exceptions and the concepts behind fate can still apply to us today. But the first theme to be discussed will be that of love. One of the most obvious themes in the play is Love. Within the play, there are a couple of types of love displayed – a fleeting infatuation and a genuine love. The fleeting love can be seen at the opening of the play where Romeo claims to be in love with the maiden Rosaline. His crush on Rosaline leads him to do thoughtless things, which Montague tells us when he says: “Away from the light steals home my heavy son and in his private chamber pens himself, shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out, and makes himself an artificial night.”(Act 1, scene 1, page 29) Romeo locks himself in his room and weeps over her, but as soon as he sees Juliet, his love for her