FREE ESSAY ON ROMEO AND JULIET

ROMEO AND JULIET

"Romeo and Juliet:" Star-Crossed Lovers?
After reading Shakespeare?s "Romeo and Juliet" I noticed something that everybody must
had noticed: their immaturity. Romeo and Juliet see each other and instantly fall in
love. The next day they get married and two days after that they die for each other. I
think that nobody is capable of doing such thing for someone you have less than a weeek
of knowing. The haste of this play is what shocked me the most. I really don?t know what
Shakespeare was trying to transmit through it. Maybe he was warning people so they could
take decissions more calmly, or maybe he was trying to critizice the youth of that time.
What I do know about "Romeo and Juliet" is that they were not really in love, and that
fate didn't play a big role in their lives.
The main purpose of this paper is to explain why weren't Romeo and Juliet in love. I
believe that love is something very easy to feel, but once you feel it it turns
complicated. What I know for sure is that nobody can fall in love just by seeing someone.
It could be called love at first sight by many, but I don't believe in that. That is
called physical attraction. Love something that grows inside with time. If Romeo and
Juliet had lived on and get to know each other well, what could be the odds of them
staying together? Nobody can love someone else if they don't really know each other.
Sometimes what we feel at first is not real, because feelings can trick us. Lucy Kavaler,
a member of the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, pointed out the
next passage:
"Soldiers were required to exercise in heat of 103 degrees at high humidity, which caused
a rise in body temperature. They were allowed to rest for a while and then, still
overheated, were asked to detect light signals flashed in a random manner. A second group
of men exercised at 75 degrees. More light flashes were reported by the men who were
hotter, which at first seemed to indicate that this state increased their alertness and
competence. But when their detection reports were compared with the number of true
signals, it was found that the increase was in false reports. Their judgment was not as
sound as that of cooler men. They had become more willing to take a risk and insist that
they saw a signal when in fact there was none."
This is a clear example of how people take decisions without knowing what they are really
doing and without thinking of the consequences. Romeo and Juliet didn't know what a big
responsibility marriage was, and especially between their families.
So, if they were not in love, what could possibly be the cause why they went through all
of this? Maybe it was just rebelliousness. Immediately after they saw each other they
were informed that they were from enemy families. But that didn't stop them. Probably it
made everything more interesting, they were playing with fire, they knew it and they
liked it. That was not smart thinking. Also they could have been trying to unite both
families together, but if that was the case, Romeo messed it up when he confronted
Tybalt. Also the participation of Friar Lawrence and the Nurse was absurd. I believe they
were old enough to know that all this was only a child's game. How could they possibly
support these two kids in taking such a dangerous decision? It sounds illogical to me.
Another important point to consider is the role that fate plays throughout the story.
People say that Romeo and Juliet were meant for each other because it was their destiny
to be together. Also, both Romeo and Juliet believed that. Romeo says during one of his
monologues that he was "fortune's fool" (III. 1. 141). But for me, there is no fate
written on anyone. Life is not a train that forces us to follow the tracks no matter
where we want to go. Instead, it is like a spaceship floating in outer space and we are
the pilots. We decide what we want to do with our lives, and clearly Romeo and Juliet
took the wrong decision because of their fake feelings.
So in conclusion, I believe that everybody falls in love at some point of their lives and
find the right person to spend their lives with. Romeo and Juliet were not made for each
other because they didn't know each other that well to determine that. I believe that
there is nothing outstanding about this play, only the foolish way of acting of these two
youngsters amazes me. 
Bibliography
Moore, Roger and Charmaine Cordero. Romeo and Juliet". [online]. last updated 1 September
2000 [cited 13 May 2000]. Available from World Wide Web: URL:
http://www.allshakespeare.com.
Walters, Scott. "Consumed by Fire." Illinois Shakespeare Festival 2001. Access Date:
November 20th, 2000. http://www.orat.ilstu.edu/shakespeare/research/ISFromeo.html
Shakespeare, William. "Romeo and Juliet." The Complete Oxford Shakespeare. Vol. III.
Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor eds. London: Oxford University Press, 1987. 1053 - 1088