Romeo and Juliet —— The Irrespon

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During 1558 to 1603, Queen Elizabeth I of England was holding the power. The era of Queen Elizabeth I experienced a flourishing of art. William Shakespeare, who was one of the distinguished artists in this era. In this essay, I would introduce Shakespeare and analyze one of his the most famous plays, Romeo and Juliet.

During 1590 to 1600, there was a good relationship developing between merchants and new aristocracy. In 1588, England became more influential, and British people defeated Spanish Armada. William Shakespeare has written a big deal of dramas and plays to inspire humanism in people, Romeo and Juliet is one of his remarkable masterworks in this period.

Romeo and Juliet is a love story between a pair of young couple. It was written in 1594, at Renaissance. Most people support humanism instead of theocracy in this era. The play of Romeo and Juliet urged that humanity but not the theocracy. It emphasized the liberation of personality as well as rationality instead of obscurantism and so on. In my opinion, the play of Romeo and Juliet embodied the freedom of love, that everyone has the right to select by themselves, but not obeying parents’ or others’ idea.

In my opinion, the love between Romeo and Juliet does not make sense.

Romeo loved a girl, but the girl did not love Romeo. He heard that the girl would attend a banquet, which is hosted by Family Capulet. Then, he sneaked into the banquet with his friend and wearing mask. Romeo decided to attend the banquet for the girl who does not like him. However, he was attracted profoundly by another girl in the banquet, Juliet. Romeo expresses his love to Juliet directly, meanwhile, Juliet shows her love to Romeo. When they learned the background of each other, there is a profound feud between their families, they still cannot forget each other.

Obviously, they fell in love to each other at the first sight. They kept loving each other, even there were a big deal of pressure to them from everywhere, such as, family name, public opinion as well as the discouragement from family members. Nevertheless, they did not give up their love. What is the reason? One of the reason why they were not follow their families’ opinion is Psychological Reactant. Everyone believes that they have the freedom and the right to make decision. When this kind of freedom is encroached or challenged, we would desire to reclaim or protect the freedom, or we are losing. The disagreements from their families are imposed. They felt they were restricted, then they will not follow their families’ idea. Take a daily instance, when there is a fresh couple, which does not make any sense to tell them, to end the relationship. Sort of, it is a kind of approach to encourage them to keep their relationship. Another example, when you are in sofa having a break and your mother yelled suddenly, “go your room and do your homework”. Will you be willing to go to do your homework? Absolutely not.

Another reason they kept their relationship going I realized is, they had a proponent to help them. Dr. Christina Berndt put forward, people will not be defeated because of relationship. In 1950s, there was a foreign government colonization in an island in Hawaii. The families on this island were poor. The parents here drank and even did drugs. The children here were abused and ignored.During that time, a research team in UC (University of California) have selected 201 children who was living in very poor growth environment. And they have taken over 40 years observation to these children. The result was two-third of children have come true to the negative anticipation. Some of them broke the laws when they were young, some of them possess the penchant of violence and some of them got major depressive disorders. In a sentence, their life were going down, and they were living the life which similar to their parents. Surprisingly, one-third of children were outstanding. Psychologists focused on the one-third people. They discovered that the one-third children have never ever had any criminal record or disreputable behavior. They acquired a good social position. They became the adults who has confidence, responsibility, and capability. They have a good family relationship and none of them lost their job till there were 40-year-old. The surveyor were curious about that. After numerous comparison, and survey. Ultimately, the surveyor discovered the only common feature in this group of children. That during their childhood, there was at the least one person who supported them. The person was not their parent, or even relative.The person could be a neighbor, a teacher and so on. The person who is willing to help and care them, to make them feels be loved, warm, and secure. The proponent would become a model of the child, and leads them out of the dilemma,and immerse to the society ultimately. This shows that how useful the agreement between person and person.

The one who supported Romeo and Juliet is the priest. Romeo went to the abbey to apply the assistance of priest. The priest accepted Romeo’s application because he considered that it would be the chance to improve the relationship between the two big families. Then, the priest made a plan to help them to keep running the love relationship between each other.However, they have chosen death because something went wrong.

From my point of view, I consider that the love between Romeo and Juliet is irresponsible.

First and foremost, they are not responsible to themselves. Life is meaningful, but they committed suicide for love. It sounds remarkable. Nevertheless, we always cannot notice that the behavior of die for love which is unrespect to life. Everyone is fighting a hard battle to live. If suicide can resolve everything, then we do not have to being alive. In fact, suicide cannot figure out anything. Ironically, Romeo just gave up to pursuit Rosaline, the girl Romeo loved but she did not love Romeo, then he has chosen to die for love with Juliet.  They both were young,they have enough time to dig the potential energy they had, even they were born in aristocrat families. Absolutely, they could find another lover in the rest of their life. Nevertheless, they have chosen to die. What a shame! Romeo was 17, and Juliet was even 13. Two bright life being were gone.

Secondly, they are not responsible to each other. They fell in love at the first sight to each other. They did not learn any information about each other. What is the reason for loving each other? The reason is that Romeo had a handsome face, and Juliet was pretty. “Young men’s love then lies not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.” (Romeo and Juliet 2.3) Shakespeare said. They loved each other, because of dopamine. Dopamine made them exciting, led them abound of passion. They interpreted, “passion is typically defined as‘strong amorous feeling’ or ‘sexual desire’” perfectly.

What’s more, they are not responsible to their own family and their relatives. When they choice to die. They did not think about their families and the people who loved them. They did not think about, what would their parents feel like after they were gone. Will their parents cry? Will their friends feel sad? Will the people who loved them feel heart-broken. They did not. The behavior of suicide is naive. Mother pregnant for over 9 months to have a child. They could not imagine the pain their mother suffered to have a baby. They were selfish to kill themselves for cheap love.

Although I have rebuked the behavior of Romeo and Juliet a lot. There is still a lot of mistake other characters did. Shakespeare has written this play, Romeo and Juliet, to show the effort of humanity in person’s life. Everyone needs freedom, which is the inherent right for everyone, and it is necessary. We cannot interfere the life too much of others.

Reference:

Portland State University, “RESILIENCE AND RECOVERY: FINDINGS FROM THE KAUAI LONGITUDINAL STUDY”, 2015, PDF, 2 July 2018, 2-4

Wikipedia,“Romeo and Juliet”, 22 June 2018, Web. 1 July 2018

Bio Newsletter,“William Shakespeare” 5 Aug. 2017, Web. 2 July 2018

Carmine Gallo, “Talk Like TED”, St. Martin’s Griffin, 2015, Book, 1 July 2018, 27-278