Passion Without Reason

The play “Romeo and Juliet” takes place over a very short span of time. Absolute bliss and abject despair are in constant competition, often violently or radically replacing one another. The characters are trapped in a whirlwind of events dictated by Romeo’s brash nature as well as a pervasive rush that finish in the double suicide of Romeo and Juliet. From the first scene’s spark of unreasonable violence follow Tybalt’s heated hatred, Romeo and Juliet’s instant love and its irony, the deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt and Romeo’s banishment. Juliet’s forced marriage and expulsion from her house, her dangerous plan, Romeo’s ignorant reaction and the deaths of the lovers and Paris form the final, tragic cascade. Swift, passionate action, most often inspired or initiated by Romeo, is a major factor in the development of all the play’s significant shifts, inevitably concluding in tragedy. In William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” speed and lack of moderation both play important roles in the outcome of the play.

The first scene of the play sets the tone dramatically, displaying a battle of passion between soldiers of the Capulets and Montagues, two feuding families. The feud itself is presented as meaningless

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Secondly, Romeo and Juliet see each other for the first time. This love, so quickly born, is just as quickly crushed in the fifth scene, when both Romeo and Juliet discover that they have fallen for the child of their father’s enemy, an insurmountable challenge to their happiness. Romeo’s hasty passion has claimed two victims without reason, and the joy that had sprung from his swift emotion is now replaced by abject sorrow from the very same source. Romeo is so much in love with Juliet that he will let all his other loyalties collapse. 91-92) He is now set on a fatal course, hating Romeo for inspiring this outrage so quickly and completely that he eventually takes a coward’s route in order to quench his thirst for revenge. However, in doing so he has achieved exactly what he had tried to avoid by not accepting Tybalt’s challenge in the first place, which is the needless death of Juliet’s cousin. 83-85) The feud is never explained in the play and its origins are, in fact unimportant. Their love will not sustain a shared life, but they do not let the impossibility of their love dampen its wonderment. He takes his humiliation poorly, and is wounded to his core. Tybalt stabs Mercutio from under Romeo’s arm, a cowardly action that capitalizes on Romeo’s indecisiveness. Tybalt taunts and provokes Romeo, who tells his enemy that for reasons unknown they should not be fighting. Romeo has set sail without considering where his course will take him, a slave to his love just as he is a slave to his hopelessly romantic nature. Tybalt is also a child of the feuding families, and while the elders can now realize the attractions of peace, he knows only how to war.

Tragedy ensues immediately following the marriage, sorrow rearing its head in the face of happiness once more.

Approximate Word count = 1067
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

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