Thursday, April 2, 2015

Why do you think Shakespeare wanted Romeo and Juliet to end this way? Do you think he was trying to say something?

Shakespeare's point? Infatuation makes people stupid. Romeo is a courtly lover--he takes sick, hopes for pity, and spends his hours pining for a woman who has rejected his every move towards her when the play opens. He continues to act impulsively and extremely as the play progresses. Even Juliet, arguably the most level-headed of the two, acts impulsively. She tells him she loves him (albeit unknowingly) before she's even had a second date, and then she offers to stand on form afterward--if he thinks he needs that.

Their deaths could have been avoided with a little patience and careful prodding, that's for certain. The issues around the ancient feud are also important, for the feud plays as great a part in the outcome as does the character of the two lovers. The commonality between the feuders and the lovers is that both act on intense, extreme emotion, are given to impulse, and create the ground that allows them all to become fortune's fool. 

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