Romeo and Juliet - Love and Fate

Romeo and Juliet is a play exploring the love of two young people. Their passion overrides their reason and eventuates is tragedy, “A pair of star-cross’d lovers” who take their lives.

Love is the greatest theme of Romeo and Juliet. It is naturally the plays most dominant and important theme. The play focuses on romantic love, specifically the intense passion that springs up at first sight between Romeo and Juliet. Love in Romeo and Juliet is a brutal, powerful emotion that captures individuals and catapults them against their world, and, at times, against themselves.
The play, rather than presenting a specific statement of love, portrays the chaos and passion of being in love, combining the themes of love, passion, family, and violence, and how they conflict with each other.

Passion is a strong emotion and has little regard for reason or logic. This statement, although contradicting of the above, can be appropriated towards passion. Passion, although disregarding of, can be presented in a more positive way when guided by reason. This is obviously not the case in Romeo and Juliet.

Romeo and Juliet’s love, like the love of the indicative youth, is acted upon very quickly and impulsively. They are impatient and do not stop and think about the consequences of their actions.
Their immature and inexperienced management of their love and consequent passion for each other ultimately results in their death.

Romeo and Juliet’s instant love for each other drives their passion. Their immaturity and lack of experience drives them to act instinctively and against the will of their elders. This lack of trust and connection between peers forces them to act in mischievous ways, which results in an ill fated conclusion. Their overriding passion and conflict of interest between families is the underlying issue expressed through the words of William Shakespeare. Their passion is unguided mainly due to their fear of their families’ disapproval, and thus their acting in secrecy. This in turn, results in an expedient expression of immaturity and reflects distinctly upon their age.

Contrary to this, Friar Lawrence and the Nurse are both people who offer guidance to the young lovers, but was it the right guidance? Although their intentions were well meaning, they underestimate youths’ impulsiveness and passion experienced. Friar Lawrence’s and the Nurse’s guidance may have been the reason for the ill fate of Romeo and Juliet.

With so many alternative ways to evaluate the play, it is hard to label one contributing factor or person to the ultimate conclusion of the play, yet the words of William Shakespeare do clearly show the danger of passion that is not guided by positive reason.