Duality In Romeo And Juliet

A common theme throughout Romeo and Juliet is the idea of duality. Duality can bedescribed as a combination of opposites such as good and evil, love and hate, or life and death.This theme is most apparent during a soliloquy of the Friar’s. The essence of what he is sayingis that everything has a true beneficial purpose, but things can be misused and perverted into evil. Nothing is purposely evil. He talks about duality most plainly with the line, “In man as well asherbs, grace and rude will;” (2.3.28). That is to say that humans, just like plants, have both goodand evil in them. He uses the example of a plant which can be used for medicine, but it can also be used as a poison.The two families, the Montagues and the Capulets, are sworn enemies.