The multiple sides of this “Love”

By,Lidia Vasquez

 

Love can be cruel and painful, it has the capacity to tear your heart apart and demolish it, love can be joyful and passionate filled with beauty, love can be a weapon that can conquer grudges; formed of hate and unite people allowing them to forgive and reconcile. Shakespeare used all these emotions that can be formed from love throughout Romeo and Juliet;  Romeo himself went through an overwhelming chain of emotions all due to the cause of love. In Romeo and Juliet the text expressed how love and sacrifices are more powerful than weapons, and how love can have many faces and emotions in it self.

In the beginning of Romeo and Juliet, Romeo is in agony and great pain brought from his passionate love towards rosaline. In act 1 scene 4 page 2

“Is love a tender thing? it is too rough,

Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.”

In this scene. Romeo questions  whether love is as tender and sweet as it is known to be. Then he expresses how he currently is experiencing heartbreak, and is dealing with the reaction of such which is, experiencing pain and perceiving love as a treacherous and cruel thing. He is referring to it  “Pricking like a thorn”. This is when the first form of love is introduced In Romeo & Juliet, a disillusioned and cruel, unfair love caused by Romeo’s “love” rosaline due to the fact that she has chosen the path of becoming a nun.

Romeo became bewitched by Juliet instantly. In Act 1 scene 5 page 2 is the origin of all this love and passion brought by these two star-crossed lovers.

“Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.”

Romeo uses the literary devices of personification. Due to the fact that he personifies his heart as if his heart would be capable of human emotion instead of referring to himself which expresses more passion “Did my heart love till now?’ He also uses a metaphor since romeo had previously referred to himself as being physically blinded and only capable of seeing rosaline, now not only he is capable of seeing but believes that he had never truly seen true beauty. Also transmitting that sometimes love can be blindt in addition love can be felt so intensely with a sudden glance.

In the prologue, there is a brief explanation of how love can also unite people even if they are hated enemies.

“two foes

A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;

Whose misadventure piteous overthrows

Do with their death bury their parents' strife.

The fearful passage of their death marked love,

And the continuance of their parents' rage,

Which, but their children's end, nought could remove.”

“our toil shall strive to mend.”

The deeper meaning is sometimes people are blinded by hatred and rage; were they assume that the only way to deal with those emotions is by violence and weapons. In shakespeare we are told that love and sacrifice can overcome feuds and battles. The capulets and Montagues only ended the feud once they saw their children dead due to the cause of a passionate forbidden love. Was it ended by their individual love for their children? Or by witnessing what the feud brought their children's unconditional love to do? In the prologue when it says “ fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,

And the continuance of their parents' rage,” Shakespeare refers to how their parents rage and hatred towards each other defined how romeo and juliet's future together was destined to end, in their death and death of others.”Which, but their children's end, nought could remove.” This is when the powerful love of their children became the most powerful weapon of all that mended the two houses together.

 

To conclude love is a very powerful emotion which the human being is fortunate for having the capability of accessing. There is always a balance of negative and positive things in life. Thus, Romeo had to feel himself heartbroken and out of love to realize how passionately he was in love with juliet. In life there is tragedies like his loved friend marvolio's death. There should be as well celebrations like romeo and juliet's marriage. Furthermore shakespeare used a lot of positives and negatives in his play for there to be a balance at the end. In Romeo & Juliet Shakespeare demonstrated different perspectives of how love can be felt and perceived due to the situations. Demonstrations of such perspectives are various. Like when Romeo felt the agony of his pain for his love rosaline. The beautiful wondrous love Romeo and Juliet felt for each other throughout the course of the play.  And Lastly, how love and sacrifice of these to children brought their families together and ended the feud. Love comes in many feelings, yet each and everyone of them posses great power.