Preview

Examples Of Immaturity In Romeo And Juliet

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
435 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Examples Of Immaturity In Romeo And Juliet
The drama “Romeo and Juliet,” written by William Shakespeare, is a timeless tragedy that presents the plot of the star-crossed lovers. Through his emotional instability and impulsive decision-making throughout the play, Shakespeare vividly presents Romeo as an immature character. By examining these aspects of Romeo’s character, the play explores the reckless nature of youthful love and its tragic consequences.

Despite Romeo’s poetic nature and intense passion for love, Shakespeare presents Romeo as emotionally unstable and changeable, demonstrating his immaturity as a character. This is demonstrated through the use of oxymorons when Romeo expresses his conflicting emotions about Rosaline, who vowed to lead a life of chastity. Romeo uses phrases like “O brawling love, O loving hate” to reflect his confusion, as well as his desperation for love. However, all of his sorrow vanishes as he sees Juliet, questioning his love for Rosaline and declaring that he “ne'er saw true beauty till this night." Romeo’s quick transitions between his infatuation with Rosaline, his dejected state over her unrequited love, and his instant change of spirits when encountering Juliet all happen within the course of a single evening, emphasising his youthful and immature understanding of love. These somewhat irrational decisions in the passage make his emotional instability and immaturity apparent.
…show more content…
The fast-paced dialogue between Romeo and Juliet during the balcony scene and declarations of love, as well as their decision to marry the day after meeting despite Juliet being in a rival household, illustrate their hasty decision-making and youthful rashness. The use of shared lines is also used in the passage.

Juliet: "If that thy bent of love be honourable... Thy purpose marriage, send me word

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In the Shakespearian tragedy Romeo and Juliet two “star-crossed” lovers accumulate great admiration towards each- other while falling deeply in love, but what exactly led to their down-fall? Was it the Romeo’s tragic flaw of impetuosity? Or was it simply just fate? Although both could have played a role, I think the ultimatum was Romeo’s tragic…

    • 368 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Juliet then makes a decision and that is “If that thy bent of love be honorable, thy purpose marriage, send me word tomorrow” She does this to see if Romeo's intentions are honorable. As an audience we react with surprise because of the time they have known each other and the age of the protagonists. With this decision Juliet takes a real control over the…

    • 1773 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Romeo's Flaws Essay

    • 753 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Not quite yet a full grown man, Romeo was still a teenager who had not yet been fully exposed to the world. Being born and raised in aristocracy, he would have be shaded from the harsh reality of the world. Romeo first claims he is in love with Rosaline, and becomes very depressed when he finds out she is going to become a nun (I. ii. 159-228). He becomes downhearted because he [thought he] knew that Rosaline was the wife for him, but as she decided to become a nun, she cannot marry. Romeo shortly thereafter meets Juliet for the first time, where he decides he is now in “love”…

    • 753 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Option 1 Every teenager goes through a growth. Sometimes it's not very easy, but they soon turn into young adults. In the story Romeo and Juliet, a teen named Juliet fell in love with someone a little older than her; Romeo. Throughout the story, they mature a lot. They started the story a little bit childish, and sometimes they moved too fast, but soon both Romeo and Juliet matured into young adults.…

    • 460 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Romeo and Juliet is a play with a deeper meaning than love. It shows the maturity of Romeo and Juliet grow throughout the play.…

    • 357 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Shakespeare introduces Romeo and Juliet’s relationship as unconventional. The first fourteen lines of the lovers meeting are written in sonnet form; this implies that the couple are in love already despite only just meeting. This is strange enough but then as you read on you realise that the sonnet is not spoken by just one individual from the couple but both of them share it together. The sharing of the sonnet strengthens Romeo and Juliet’s love at first sight because they seem to be unusually unified and ordered when they are sharing the poem together. The structured organisation of Romeo and Juliet’s conversation is in contrast with Romeo’s earlier lust for Rosaline; throughout talking about Rosaline he seems to be constantly confused by his feelings. For instance: earlier in the play Shakespeare has Romeo exclaim; ‘O brawling love, O loving hate,’ using repetition and an oxymoron together to amplify Romeo’s unsure feelings about Rosaline. These feelings towards Rosaline at the start of the play would be seen as more accurate for a young boy in Shakespeare’s times, than Romeo’s love for Juliet because in Shakespearean culture it was expected of boys Romeo’s age to act with an exaggerated love for a girl even if they had not spoken to before. This fact makes Romeo and Juliet’s relationship even more unorthodox.…

    • 561 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Romeo begins to talk about his love for Rosaline. The use of oxymorons shows his internal conflict and anguish he feels over his loss. Also, Romeo mentions only extremes, demonstrating his dramatic and rather complicated emotional state he is in. For a first impression of Romeo, this is not particularly flattering: his monologue is far more passionate than real love ought to…

    • 63 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Shakespeare 's 'Romeo and Juliet ' is a tragedy told in two language styles, prose and verse. Death, fate, disorder are all minor components of this classic story centred on a dangerous love that reaches across the barriers of family and convention. Some perceptions of love in this play are dutiful, passionate, sexual and so forth. Throughout this essay I will be exploring the different perceptions of love and how Shakespeare 's use of language and structure further emphasises each perception.…

    • 1890 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    “O brawling love/ O loving hate! O anything of nothing first create!” The oxymorons convey his frustration and confusion over this unrequited ‘love’, proving it is superficial. The juxtaposition on this false, one sided love against the later intense, true love with Juliet highlights how concentrated and deep his new love shown in Act Two Scene Two is.…

    • 684 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Many people regard the love in Romeo and Juliet to be extremely romantic, passionate, and tragic. However, certain characters fall in and out of love frequently, hinting in that Shakespeare views love as fickle, or “puppy love”. For example, in the beginning of the play, Romeo is stricken with love for the lady Rosaline, who does…

    • 983 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Romeo and Juliet written by William Shakespeare illustrates a pair of star-crossed lovers who end their lives after an unruly four days of romance. Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet establish new and mature identities after their secret marriage, even after they realize they come from rival households in Verona. The world of the everyday animates the characters as fully grown and rational, nevertheless, the lovers constantly emphasize that they are trapped in the world of romance where they are passionate and emotional. The purpose of the two worlds is to show each character’s growing maturity as they become a part of the world of the everyday. They show their transformation with the changes in their language and when they abandon their youth.…

    • 1064 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Romeo and Juliet, a play by William Shakespeare,there is a character who is a star crossed lover who falls in “love” with any beautiful lady. This character is Romeo. Romeo is immature, fickle, and passionate character who falls in love so quickly and with this falls in love with Juliet, the enemy. The qualities immaturity, fickleness, and passion are a key factor in the characterization of Romeo.…

    • 406 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The heartbroken Romeo lashes out negatively, behaving like many who have suffered at the hands of love. For example, in Act I Scene I, Romeo describes love as a deadly poison, a smoke, a swollen sea, a madness, and a choking gall. Portraying love as “smoke,” evokes images of a choking black cloud of doom. Millions of those who have tasted the bitterness of love denied know how gloomy and bleak the world feels. Romeo also speaks of love as “madness” with him being the “lunatic.” Again, he depicts love as an unpredictable craziness, but isn’t this typical of one who is hurting? Romeo’s metaphors about love may seem harsh, but they are characteristic of one who has lost in the game of love. His hurt stems from authentic feelings, and he speaks about love as if he is genuinely heartbroken. Romeo’s love for Rosaline is genuine because he demonstrates symptoms of someone heartbroken and he refuses to believe there is life after Rosaline. His actions are typical of many young people experiencing the heartbreak of an authentic…

    • 389 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When Romeo met Juliet, it may have kick started the events that eventually snowballed into the tragedy. Romeo may have some characteristics that make him a likeable character, such as being passionate and strong-minded, shown by his decisiveness to have a relationship with Juliet no matter what, but he is also a hormone driven teenager, for his rash and impulsive personality led him to make decisions that were not ideal. Evidence of him being “hormone driven” are shown in Act 1 Scene 5. In Act 1 Scene 1, we are convinced that he is desperately in love with a woman named Rosaline; as we are find out that he is extremely saddened by her rejection and awed by her beauty. “In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.” and “That will only make me think more about how beautiful she is.” These quotes prove that Romeo was indeed genuinely in love with Rosaline at the time. Now, moving on to Act 1 Scene 5, when Romeo first sets his eyes on Juliet, he immediately forgets about his love Rosaline, and claims that Juliet is the most beautiful girl he ever saw, shown by his quote “Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.” He speaks of Juliet as he spoke of Rosaline a few hours before. The above statements look to prove that Romeo is very serious about his romances, but very impulsive and quick to make decisions without considering the full consequences. Because of his…

    • 789 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Romeo and Juliet

    • 8729 Words
    • 35 Pages

    Even Romeo’s relation to love is not so simple. At the beginning of the play, Romeo pines for Rosaline, proclaiming her the paragon of women and despairing at her indifference toward him. Taken together, Romeo’s Rosaline-induced histrionics seem rather juvenile. Romeo is a great reader of love poetry, and the portrayal of his love for Rosaline suggests he is trying to re-create the feelings that he has read about. He is initially presented as a Petrarchan lover, a man whose feelings of love aren't reciprocated by the lady he admires and who uses the poetic language of sonnets to express his emotions about his situation. Romeo's exaggerated language in his early speeches characterizes him as a young and inexperienced lover who is more in love with the concept of being in love than with the woman herself.…

    • 8729 Words
    • 35 Pages
    Powerful Essays