Romeo and Juliet: How good exactly is this love story?
Why is a play written in approximately 1597 about two teens who elope and commit suicide so widely portrayed? While there are a great many controversial things in the play and all of the film portrayals, there is a method behind the madness of telling this story again and again. That being said, I’ve read most of Shakespeare’s most popular plays and while the characters weren’t always the most sympathetic–I couldn’t argue every one was a work of art. Whether it was the language, the story, or the dramatic unfolding of events I was usually intrigued. So, if it wasn’t the romance in this story, or the main characters (because I have MANY an issue with Romeo as a love interest and a guy in general), what makes it so popular?
Time and Culture Appropriate:
To most people, one of the biggest turn offs in this story is Juliet’s age and her treatment as a character in general. Juliet is 13 in the play and 15 when portrayed by Olivia Hussey. Today we look at having a girl that age marry as an act of child abuse (with good reason). However, in the 1500s and 1600s the marrying age for boys and girls was absurdly young in Italy, England, and most of the world. In other words, Juliet was the realistic age for an unmarried girl in that time and culture. Romeo couldn’t have been much older than her (maybe he was 16) because he’s unmarried as well. The culture being so male dominated was always a frustrating aspect of the work for me, because Juliet seems to suffer more than her love interest due to her life being run by her family:
Juliet is nearly forced into a marriage with Paris by her parents.
Juliet has no say in who she wants to be with unlike Romeo who seems to be pursuing relationships with little consequence.
Again, these things are true to the times and her position. The reason I try not to get too involved with details in a fictional story, like the character’s age (that come as a consequence of time and setting in the story) is because to do that is to not see the forest for the trees. Many stories like Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility have young girls in relationships with men much they’re senior but that doesn’t mean as a work it should be disregarded or ignored. So what is it that makes the story worth looking into despite the red flags?
Shakespeare’s Aristotelian take on Tragedy:
Big words I know, but breaking it down plain and simple–Aristotle (a famous Greek Philosopher teaching in 338 B.C ) wrote about tragedy and drama. In Aristotle’s depiction of tragedy and the famous “tragic hero,” traumatic events would arise in the story as a result of various characters' mistakes throughout the play. In other words, good tragedy doesn’t come as simply as “bad things happen to good people.” To write a good and conflicted tragedy in which the audience will simultaneously be sympathetic to the characters and frustrated, the tragedy comes as a result of individual choices throughout the story and many of them are often wrong ones. All of Shakespeare’s plays are excellent examples of this. Because if human beings were honest with themselves, tragic things like friendships ending, betrayal, and rivalries don’t always come out of nowhere:
Iago can trick Othello because he’s jealous and angry.
Edmund is able to convince his overly trusting brother to run away and their foolish father into thinking Edgar wants to kill him.
Lancelot can have an affair with Guinevere because Arthur didn't have the foresight to marry a woman who actually loved him.
And Iron man tries to kill Bucky Barnes because Captain America didn’t tell him the truth sooner and now their friendship is ruined. That’s a more modern tragedy but you get the idea.
This style is prevalent in Romeo and Juliet. It’s not a great love story but it is a compelling story plain and simple. Whether you think Romeo and Juliet belong together or not, they are pushed to suicide by a series of tragedies or hardships that could have been avoided if not for human error:
The Montagues and the Capulets are feuding to the point of violent fighting in the streets which eventually leads to the death of both Romeo’s best friend and Juliet’s cousin.
Juliet is going to be forced into a marriage with Paris against her will, when she pleads with her parents they cast her aside and insult her, refusing to give any consolation.
Even the Friar’s actions of marrying Romeo and Juliet in secret could be seen as a mistake because perhaps there’s a chance he could have told the feuding families and attempted to make peace.
The compelling way to write tragedy is that every character acts in a way according to their motivations, desires and drive–but in doing so they bring about events like a series of dominos that lead to the ultimate conclusion. It causes the reader to struggle and wonder if there’s any other way the plot could have turned out. For example, in West Side story (based off the play in question), all of the characters are confined by their situations which lead them to make the choices they do. The reasonable thing to do in that film would be to go to the Police to stop any rumble before anyone gets killed. But the Puerto Ricans won’t go to the Police because they’ve been persecuted and harassed by the Jets (who they believe to be representing all white Americans). And the Jets won’t go to the Police because of their troubled parentage and rough history with the law. None of them have any respect for adults or authority due to their upbringing. The violence and conflict goes so far it takes murder to snap both parties into some sense. Romeo and Juliet isn’t about romance, it’s about tragedy unfolding as a result of various human mistakes. It takes death to bring the Montagues and the Capulets to their senses.
Who is the hero?
So, one half of the couple is surprisingly inadequate, whiny, and spineless. Spoiler alert it’s NOT the teenage girl. There aren’t a great many good characters or people in the play but one of the least useful or compelling is Romeo. Juliet starts off as a bright sheltered girl who doesn't want to be forced into a marriage because she’s looking for love, in other words–she’s a Disney Princess. Romeo, is a whiny boy who’s complaining because the girl he wanted to hook up with (Rosaline) joined the church and now he can’t date her. His friends take him to the Capulet party looking for girls and this is his sole character arc. Now you might say both Romeo and Juliet are motivated by love in this story, so what makes Romeo such a wimp and Juliet not?
Good question. I have a lengthy answer but I’ll do my best to keep it short. Let’s consider what we expect bare minimum from a protagonist/hero: a leading character whom the story follows actively making choices and decisions to alter the course of events for the better. In other words, the hero isn’t always fighting crime, sometimes they're trying to make the best of the worst situation by actively doing something. Let’s contrast the actions of Romeo and Juliet in the play:
After Romeo and Juliet kiss at the party and meet for the second time, it’s on her balcony when he listens to her talking about him. Romeo makes various love confessions but no plans. It’s Juliet’s idea to meet with the Friar and plan a wedding.
When Romeo is banished, he responds by literally crying on the floor and complaining (even though he’s legally married to Juliet at the time). He has a wife but has made no plans to fix his banishment or be able to consummate his marriage to Juliet. Once again, Juliet is the one who works with the Friar to plan their wedding night.
After their first night together Romeo runs home and Juliet is left to deal with her parents. They demand she marry Paris (since they don’t know she’s already married) and she begs trying to reason with them to no avail. When this doesn’t work, Juliet goes to the Friar and tells him she would rather die than be forced to marry someone else. “Be not so long to speak, I long to die! If what thou speak’st speak not of remedy!” Juliet and the Friar arrive at the plan to fake Juliet’s death while Romeo is off doing…I don’t know what.
Juliet having the agency traditionally reserved for male characters extends as far to the finale in which they both kill themselves. In Shakespeare, poison tended to be the woman's means of death, quick, delicate and painless. Romeo has a vile of poison and a dagger, like with everything else–he takes the least confrontational approach and drinks the poison. In King Lear, the women drink poison and the men fight with swords or daggers. Juliet takes the dagger and stabs herself in the chest taking literally, “the man’s way out” in dramatic terms.
So basically, Romeo is tossed about without really making any decisions for himself. He cries, complains and talks a lot but he doesn’t do anything to move the plot or change things. And this trait is shown even before Juliet when he’s complaining over Rosaline. Romeo tends to give problems not solutions. Juliet is the one who makes all the decisions and attempts to make their life together possible. In the end, Juliet stabs herself, symbolically this also makes Juliet look like she’s in the man’s position.
Is there a right way to do Insta-love?
There are two ways to look at the relationship in Romeo and Juliet.
It’s the story of two unsupervised children who make poor life and relationship choices which lead to their deaths.
It’s the story of two young people finding love and the turmoil of their families and the world around them leads them to tragic death.
While both are valid, the second theory requires a little more defense. If you’re able to buy what modern booky people call “Insta love” there is a sense of romantic tragedy to it. Insta-love is typically used when characters have little time to get to know each other and a story happens in a short amount of time. Examples being:
In Tangled they fall in love after 3 days.
Snow White meets the Prince once for five minutes and is supposedly in love.
Angel sees Buffy and instantly falls for her.
The fairytales tend to rush past the “falling in love phase” because they have a story to cut to. They tend to spend a single song, scene or moment to get a couple to fall in love. I personally prefer the couples that have more time to build, but I do believe Insta-love can be done in a compelling way. We know these stories are fiction and therefore bringing too much reality into them can ruin the enjoyment. As long as we enjoy the characters' connection, how they compliment each other, and their feelings seem genuine then we can enjoy the couple. It’s imperative we see them displaying true Biblical love at one point or another in the story (being patient, kind, compassionate etc. ), it makes us more easily believe their Insta-love wasn’t Insta-lust. For example, Ariel loves Prince Eric only after just seeing him, but the audience is led to believe it more because she risks her life for him and he does the same for her at the end of the film. Two dumb teens in a crush wouldn’t be that selfless for each other. If you can slip Insta-love by the reader seemingly unnoticed then we can grow to be invested in the couple.
Also, the way Insta-love is portrayed has a massive effect on how we see it. When many people think of “love at first sight” we often think a girl sees a guy and her eyes pop out of her head, and she thinks “oh my gosh, I’ve found true love!” This is an oversimplified version and when it is done this way, very few stories can pull it off. The only stories which do this are fairy tales, typically. However, there’s a more convincing way I prefer to think of what we’ve grown to call Insta-love:
-A strong instantaneous attraction, compassionate emotion or romantic desire a character has for another.
To get into whether or not this always classifies as genuine love is another story entirely. But more often than not, this definition runs closer to what “love at first sight” really means. When Angel first sees Buffy, he expresses he had a desire to protect her, help her, and become a better man for her. In other words, he had strong feelings right away but I don’t believe the character processed he was in love. Angel doesn't confess to loving Buffy except moments before they’re intimate. Aladdin is instantly attracted to Jasmine and she falls for him fairly quickly, but recognizing it as love comes later after the two characters have grown and made sacrifices. I believe there is a sense of romanticism and good story telling to properly do Insta-love. As a tool in writing it serves a purpose in having characters quickly drawn to others seemingly without explanation. As viewers, we like it because it gives us an instant attachment to the character who fell prey to love at first sight. We know what they want, and they seem strongly emotionally invested in it to a degree that makes us care about the outcome. We also desire to see the characters' affections tested in order to determine if they really are in love or merely infatuated. For example, Ariel is so motivated by her desire to be anywhere near Eric that the audience is invested and we want to see if he cares for her. We latch onto characters with strong desires and passions that they are ardently motivated by, because everyone has something or someone they wanted desperately at one point or another. So in my opinion, there is a compelling way to do Insta-love. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but for some stories it can work magic. So, the question that remains is, does Romeo and Juliet perform the trope well?
The love story misses the mark but the tragedy is on point:
Some may call this a tragic love story. Undoubtedly, it is a tragedy because far too many people are killed unjustly, but the romance is the weakest part. When I first saw Romeo and Juliet (1968), I was in my early teens and there were some things that moved me.
I suspended my incredulity as to how quickly they fall in love, and I was moved by the idea (no matter how fictional or unrealistic) that a character like Juliet could be moved emotionally by someone when she had no desire at the time to marry anyone. She seems like a bright girl who isn't allowing herself to be pushed into an arranged marriage, and when she falls for Romeo it comes out of the blue but I believed she was serious because of all the measures she takes to ensure their future.
I liked Juliet’s agency and passion as a young woman with limited means who was trying to be with who she loved. I was never impressed with Romeo (because he was a lot of big talk with zero actions to back them up). But I admired Juliet refusing to be controlled by her parents or Paris and making her own choices throughout the story. I don’t approve of every choice she makes, but I appreciate her not being a pinball in the plot as many females in Shakespeare are. Juliet is actually moving the plot.
The language is beautiful.
The theme What is youth? from the 1968 film is a romantically tragic ballad.
These were the things I liked in the film/play at the time. However, since then I’ve been able to reflect on the story and relationship more leaving me less impressed with the romance on a whole. The story and unfolding of events is tragedy written at its finest; however, because I believe Romeo to be a weak and insufficient love interest, it made me less invested in the story on a whole when I got older. Romeo being a wimp made me think Juliet should have put off marrying him and realized what his true character was. He doesn’t have answers to any solutions, he gets in a fight and kills her cousin, he has no means of fixing any of the problems he creates. I appreciated Tybalt (because he didn’t like Romeo) and the Friar because at least he attempts to bring adult maturity into the situation. The reason the couple isn't compelling to me was because the Insta-love really doesn't feel thought through. In the versions of the trope which were done successfully, the couple would be instantly attracted or interested and then as the story progressed we’d see their love validated through their actions. But, as I’ve said, we only really see Juliet making sacrifices for Romeo, so it looks more like she’s a loyal passionate girl with poor taste in boys. Romeo serves as more of a pinball protagonist who doesn’t do anything but make circumstances worse. The point of the story in my mind wasn't the romance. It was because of hatred, human error, inability to forgive and make peace–two young people were led to make poor choices which resulted in their deaths. It took the death of the Capulet's precious girl, and the Montagues most prized boy, to make the families see what their division had led to.
-Jubilee