Comparing Love In William Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet
ZOE BUCKLEY ON TEENAGE INFATUATION—WAIT… LOVE.
“When did we see each other face-to-face? Not until you saw into my cracks and I saw into yours. Before that, we were just looking at ideas of each other, like looking at your window shade but never seeing inside. But once the vessel cracks, the light can get in. The light can get out,” Once again John Green has swept us off our feet with one of his teenage love stories.
Stereotypes, we love them, and we hate them. They stigmatise anyone and everyone, though one of the most frequently targeted seems to be teenagers, especially around the idea of love. Love is something in life that everyone seems to want, it’s plastered on billboards, posters, in nearly every book and movie. Yet when teenagers …show more content…
mention love adults cringe away from the subject, usually with a
comment along the lines of ‘you're too young’ or ‘you don’t know what love is’.
However, when it comes to teenagers being in love, why don’t we get taken seriously? Isn't falling love supposed to be the only thing we’re good at?
William Shakespeare as we all know, was the ‘creator’ of teenage love, with his tragic play of Romeo and Juliet showcasing two teenagers hastily falling in ‘love’ because they thought the other was attractive. I mean what other ways would teenagers fall in love? It's not as if we fall in love like adults do—based on someone's personality, right? Wrong. Trust me I have John Green to back me up, teenagers don’t fall in love based solely on beauty, there's so much more to it.
Our seemingly never ending tale of Romeo and Juliet—with their hasty relationship and sole focus on beauty being the most important aspect of their love lives. Are but few of the reasons why teenagers don’t consider the play to be a good guideline on love. We see Romeo and Juliet’s relationship as one that we would experience during primary school—deciding that we like one another and then getting “married”. During Act 1 of Romeo and Juliet there is a very famous quote that seems to sum up their relationship: “Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.” This quote features Romeo, basically saying ‘anything I have felt for anyone before this moment was a lie because this girl is prettiest’. Not exactly what I'd call true …show more content…
love.
John Green, in his novel Paper Towns provides realistic portrayal of teen love for us 21st century teens.
The reason Paper Towns has more relevance to contemporary teens is based around the idea of the main character, Quentin and his love interest Margo, not actually ending up together. Through the novel, Quentin progressively gets to know Margo, as he does he forms an idea of her being perfect, a veil that hides her all her flaws. A major theme in the novel develops from this, [which is?, in which] Quentin realising that Margo wasn't in fact perfect this is seen in a quote from the book: “She was not a miracle. She was not an adventure. She was not a fine and precious thing. She was a girl.” This is something that I know all teenagers can support, we don’t think of people as divine beings and if we do we soon come to the realisation that we’re all just people. This is supported again when Margo says— “What a treacherous thing it is to believe that a person is more than a person.”
This is against the themes represented in Romeo and Juliet. Starting from when the two first met, a lot of their time spent together was based around different ways of saying ‘you're pretty’. “…It is the east and Juliet is the sun…” When one compares another to something more than they are (like the sun), they create an image of that person for themselves that isn't realistic. In which one’s idea of said person would never be able to do something wrong. The exert from Paper Towns is undoubtedly powerful,
in the sense we, as teenagers don’t think of each other as god-like creatures.
The reality of teen love is that—despite how it may be advertised in books and movies—our hearts are as thin as paper, we let everyone in. Maybe teens do fall in love a little harder, and a little quicker, but then again, most of the time teenagers don’t actually end up together in a relationship, no matter how attractive one or the other is.
“… love lies not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.” This quote from Romeo and Juliet is one that I think sums up the essence of the entire play. As a teenager I can say that we don’t want to be a person that falls in love with someone's looks rather than their personality, because looks can easily change, while personalities are hard to change. This is why Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is not a relevant teenage love story.
“When did we see each other face-to-face? Not until you saw into my cracks and I saw into yours. Before that, we were just looking at ideas of each other, like looking at your window shade but never seeing inside. But once the vessel cracks, the light can get in. The light can get out,” Once again John Green has swept us off our feet with one of his teenage love stories.
Stereotypes, we love them, and we hate them. They stigmatise anyone and everyone, though one of the most frequently targeted seems to be teenagers, especially around the idea of love. Love is something in life that everyone seems to want, it’s plastered on billboards, posters, in nearly every book and movie. Yet when teenagers …show more content…
mention love adults cringe away from the subject, usually with a
comment along the lines of ‘you're too young’ or ‘you don’t know what love is’.
However, when it comes to teenagers being in love, why don’t we get taken seriously? Isn't falling love supposed to be the only thing we’re good at?
William Shakespeare as we all know, was the ‘creator’ of teenage love, with his tragic play of Romeo and Juliet showcasing two teenagers hastily falling in ‘love’ because they thought the other was attractive. I mean what other ways would teenagers fall in love? It's not as if we fall in love like adults do—based on someone's personality, right? Wrong. Trust me I have John Green to back me up, teenagers don’t fall in love based solely on beauty, there's so much more to it.
Our seemingly never ending tale of Romeo and Juliet—with their hasty relationship and sole focus on beauty being the most important aspect of their love lives. Are but few of the reasons why teenagers don’t consider the play to be a good guideline on love. We see Romeo and Juliet’s relationship as one that we would experience during primary school—deciding that we like one another and then getting “married”. During Act 1 of Romeo and Juliet there is a very famous quote that seems to sum up their relationship: “Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.” This quote features Romeo, basically saying ‘anything I have felt for anyone before this moment was a lie because this girl is prettiest’. Not exactly what I'd call true …show more content…
love.
John Green, in his novel Paper Towns provides realistic portrayal of teen love for us 21st century teens.
The reason Paper Towns has more relevance to contemporary teens is based around the idea of the main character, Quentin and his love interest Margo, not actually ending up together. Through the novel, Quentin progressively gets to know Margo, as he does he forms an idea of her being perfect, a veil that hides her all her flaws. A major theme in the novel develops from this, [which is?, in which] Quentin realising that Margo wasn't in fact perfect this is seen in a quote from the book: “She was not a miracle. She was not an adventure. She was not a fine and precious thing. She was a girl.” This is something that I know all teenagers can support, we don’t think of people as divine beings and if we do we soon come to the realisation that we’re all just people. This is supported again when Margo says— “What a treacherous thing it is to believe that a person is more than a person.”
This is against the themes represented in Romeo and Juliet. Starting from when the two first met, a lot of their time spent together was based around different ways of saying ‘you're pretty’. “…It is the east and Juliet is the sun…” When one compares another to something more than they are (like the sun), they create an image of that person for themselves that isn't realistic. In which one’s idea of said person would never be able to do something wrong. The exert from Paper Towns is undoubtedly powerful,
in the sense we, as teenagers don’t think of each other as god-like creatures.
The reality of teen love is that—despite how it may be advertised in books and movies—our hearts are as thin as paper, we let everyone in. Maybe teens do fall in love a little harder, and a little quicker, but then again, most of the time teenagers don’t actually end up together in a relationship, no matter how attractive one or the other is.
“… love lies not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.” This quote from Romeo and Juliet is one that I think sums up the essence of the entire play. As a teenager I can say that we don’t want to be a person that falls in love with someone's looks rather than their personality, because looks can easily change, while personalities are hard to change. This is why Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is not a relevant teenage love story.