Rude Will Vs. Grace In Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet

Rude Will vs. Grace
Essay

ENG 2D1
Ms. Jeon
Shazi Syed

Rude will can be described as emotional behavior, while grace is referred to as rational behavior, ironically these two elements bound together in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to create love. During the starting of the play, Juliet was a shy girl, always obedient and discreet she represents grace. Romeo on the other hand, was ignorant, foolish, rebellious, and irrational, he tends to show a spontaneous character and thus represents rude will. Once the balance between rude will versus grace is disrupted, the situation becomes dangerous, destructive, and unpredictable. In the play Romeo and Juliet, rude will versus grace illustrates the conflict between rational and irrational
thinking and the importance of maintaining the balance. Before Juliet met Romeo, before the passionate love that exploded, and before Juliet grew up into the bold and courageous mature woman, there was Juliet, the shy and innocent young girl that represented innocence and grace.During the start of the play, Juliet was obedient and well behaved, "madam, I am here, what is your will" (1.9.7). this indicates that Juliet is very polite and even though she was born to an upper-class family, Juliet still insists on calling her enlders by their titles. Juliet in her ways is very childlike at the start as she replied when asked about marriage, "It is an honour that I dream not of"(1.3.71). according to Shakespearean times, this answer would have been highly unusual as girls were considered for marriage as soon as they begun their menstrual cycle and Juliet, being thirteen years of age would have more than likely have begun hers. Making this statement shows how immature Juliet's character really is. On the contrary of being obedient, Juliet is also strictly religious as influenced by her parents, even in the process of falling in love with Romeo when they first met Juliet still resisted, as she replied to Romeo, "for saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, and palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss" (1.5.110-111)…"Ay, pilgrim, kiss that they must use in prayer" (1.5.113). Juliet resists kissing Romeo argueing that touching palms is as satisfying as a kiss, and trying to convince Romeo that lips are for praying, not for kissing. This indicates that Juliet is very religious. Juliet had always been shy, never exposed to anyone outside her family, that was until she met Romeo. Throughout the play, Romeo demonstrated a tendency to be irrational and his decisions were never thought threw entirely, he tended to be ignorant to the consequences of his actions, he decided solely on reflexes rather than reason.
Romeo has a habit of falling in and out of love, he tends to have a lack of commitment to one person and exaggerate his feelings and impulses. When Romeo went to the Capulet's party and saw Juliet for the first time he immediately forgot about Rosaline and fell in love with Juliet as he stated, "Did my heart love till now? Forswear it sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night (1.5.59-61). He questioned himself if he had ever loved anyone before that night, and if so, then his eyes must have lied, because he had never seen anyone before that night. Earlier that same day Romeo had been sobbing over Rosaline and soon as he saw Juliet he had completely forgotten about his last love. This depicts Romeo's habit and character of falling in and out of love and having little commitment to one person since his depression over Rosaline was quickly shattered when he saw Juliet. Another part of Romeo's character is that he is illogical and decides too much on instinct instead of sense as he took vengeance on Tybalt for killing Mercutio , "Now, Tybalt, take the villain back again that lay thou gavest me, for Mercutio's soul is but a little way above or heads, staying for thine to keep him company. Either thou or I or both must go with him. Although Romeo's friend Mercutio was slain by Tybalt, it was no reason for Romeo to justify his reason for killing him out of vengeance. Thus, proving that Romeo killed Tybalt through his spontaneous character and not reason, Romeo's act jus further magnified his tendency to make irrational decisions and exaggerate his reactions and not thinking about the consequences. During the end of the play, in Act 5, scenes 1 -2 Balthasar thought Juliet was dead and informed Romeo. Without stopping to
analyze the situation, Romeo's irrational and impulsive nature triggered him to make a hasty decision which was the cause of his own demise and eventually Juliet's as well. Romeo has shown a propensity to make absurd, ridiculous decisions which are not well thought out and lead to major consequences. There is a delicate balance between rude will versus grace and once this is broken, it will throw the whole situation into chaos and disarray. Not only is it visible to the reader the importance of the balance between rude will and grace, but it is also addressed. Friar Lawrence himself advised Romeo about the fickleness of love in Act 2 Scene 2 and the equilibrium between rude will and grace that must be maintained or else there will be dire consequences that follow through once the balance is broken. Romeo and Juliet both contributed to severing the balance between rude will and grace as they both somewhat influenced one another to do so which resulted in major reparations. When Romeo became slightly influenced by Juliet and showed rationality, "Tybalt! Mercutio! The Prince expressly hath, Forbid this bandying in Verona streets" (3.1.89-90), it upset the balance between rude will and grace and caused Mercutio to be killed. Romeo stopped them at the wrong place at the wrong time. Juliet, blindly in love wit Romeo is heavily influenced by him too as she showed complete irrational thinking when she found that Romeo was dead, "Yea, noises? Then I'll be brief. O, happy dagger, this is thy sheath. There rust, and let me die" (5.3.174-175). This illustrates the consequences for disrupting the balance between the two elements, Juliet killed herself to be with Romeo but only because she was heavily under Romeo's influence. If Juliet hadn't met Romeo, she would never be as irrational as depicted during the end of the play, the grace element had diminished and there was only irrationality and rude will left which caused Juliet to commit suicide. Love can easily become treacherous once the balance is broken between irrational and rational thinking between the opposite lovers. Rude will versus grace illustrates the conflict between rational and irrational thinking and the importance of maintaining the balance as depicted in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. At the starting of the play Juliet was shy and represented grace while Romeo represented Rude will, once the balance between these two elements were broken through influence on each other, the situation became chaotic. Anything bound together uniformly such as love will always have two sides, two elements,