THEMES IN
ROMEO & JULIET
THEME ONE: APPEARANCE VERSUS REALITY
Don't judge a person by his name or social standing. Judge him or her by personal
qualities and merits. As Juliet observes in Act 1.2, “What's in a name? That which we call
a rose/ By any other word would smell as sweet.” Some members of the Capulets and
Montagues have never even met and yet they hate each other, just because of a person's
last name. Now that ain’t right, is it?
THEME TWO: ROMANTIC LOVE
Romeo and Juliet is the most famous love story in the English literary tradition. Love,
therefore, is naturally an important theme. The play focuses on romantic love,
specifically the intense passion or “love at first sight” that springs up between Romeo and
Juliet. In Romeo and Juliet, love is a violent, thrilling, overpowering force that
supersedes all other values, loyalties, and emotions. In the course of the play, the young
lovers are driven to defy their entire social world: families ("Deny thy father and refuse
thy name," Juliet asks, "Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, / And I'll no longer be
a Capulet"); friends (Romeo abandons Mercutio and Benvolio after the feast in order to
go to Juliet's garden); and ruler (Romeo returns to Verona for Juliet's sake after being
exiled by the Prince on pain of death in Act 2.1). Love is the overriding theme of the
play, but the audience should always remember that Shakespeare is not really
uninterested in portraying a prettied-up, dainty version of the emotion of love; he is not
interested in the kind of love that Romeo dreams of while wooing Rosaline. Love in
Romeo and Juliet is a tough, powerful emotion that captures individuals and catapults
them against their world, and, at times, against themselves.
Romeo and Juliet portrays this chaos and passion of being in love, combining images of
love, violence, death and family in an impressionistic rush leading to the play's tragic
conclusion. It is love at first sight thwarted by destiny or a tragic love that conquers all.
Though Romeo and Juliet died, their deaths brought their feuding families to their senses
at last.
THEME THREE: YOUTH & AGE
Immaturity and inexperience can lead to stubborn, headstrong and irreversible decisions.
When youthful Romeo and Juliet commit suicide, they act out of the passion of the
moment, believing all is lost. If they had had the wisdom, perhaps age or experience, to
consider that their whole lives lay before them, that other paths lay open to them, they
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surely would have embraced a more cautious method to whittle away the opposition of
their families. As Friar Laurence states, “They stumble that run fast.”
At the same time, Shakespeare is also commenting on the adult world. Innocent children
are sometimes sacrificial victims of their parents' or society’s sins and lack of wisdom.
Consider that Romeo and Juliet die because their families could not make peace with one
another. The absence of a peaceful and supportive society, which provides a nurturing
environment for youth, raises the question of adult responsibility in the demise of these
youths. Do characters such as the Montagues, Capulets, the Nurse and Friar Laurence
provide sound advice to the idealistic youth? Did they fail in their mentoring role as
guardians of the children of Verona? Are Shakespeare's parents wise mentors or clueless
nutbars?
THEME FOUR: FATE OR COINCIDENCE VERSUS FREE WILL
To what degree are we in control of our fate in life? Is our outcome written in the heavens
or stars, or do we have the will and the way to control our destiny, to outwit our fate? Are
we all “fortune’s fool” or can we “defy you stars”? In Romeo and Juliet, the Prologue
clearly presents a fatalistic vision that our lovers are doomed to a tragic end that, in its
great misfortune, will renew Verona society: the feuding families will end their rivalries
in response to the deaths of our star-crossed lovers. As critic Bertrand Evans points out:
"Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy of unawareness" more so than any of Shakespeare's
other plays. "Fate, or Heaven, as the Prince calls it, or the "greater power," as the
Friar calls it, working out its purpose without the use of either a human villain or a
supernatural agent sent to intervene in mortal affairs, operates through the common
human condition of not knowing.
Fate is seen in the play through the lucky and unlucky juxtaposed (beside each other),
“coincidences and accidents,” the rapid and hurried plans, the suddenness and pace that
seem beyond prevention. Fate becomes the evolution of luck and chance beyond our
control similar to concept of being in the right place at the right time or visa versa.
Romeo went to the party by chance, met Juliet by chance, and encountered belligerent
Tybalt by chance. Then, the letter sent to Romeo informing him that Juliet was
pretending to be dead went undelivered, again by chance. By chance, Romeo meets Paris
at Juliet's tomb and kills him. By chance, Juliet awakens too late to save Romeo. Is this
just a play of bad luck?
Could moments of decision or human will have altered this fate? Many difficult
decisions had to be made. Friar's decision to marry them was difficult. He could have told
their parents. He risked taking the responsibility for marrying them knowing it might
cause upheaval. Juliet had the difficult decision of how to get out of marrying Paris. She
was also confronted with the dilemma of whether to appease her parents and follow their
wishes which would mean marrying Paris or follow her heart and marry Romeo. The
families made the decision to end their feud to prevent any more unnecessary deaths.
List some points where human will could have altered circumstance.
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THEME FIVE: THE PARADOX OF LOVE
The Paradox of Love is another theme explored in the play. Love can give joy with one
hand and inflict sorrow with the other. Love can be “sweet sorrow,” bitter sweet and all
those other oxymorons. As Romeo bemoans, "Alas, that love, so gentle in his view, /
Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!" (1.1.169-170). Love, while exciting,
breathtaking and tender, is also what causes Juliet and Romeo so much sadness, grief and
ultimately self-death. Romeo has much to say about the way love also contains sorrow,
loneliness and bitterness. Romeo and Juliet's love is always under threat of violence and
surrounded by the hatred of their families. The culmination of “sweet sorrow” is the love
in the death of Romeo and Juliet that the Capulets and Montagues express in the end.
Throughout the play, the love-death metaphor thrives; in fact, Juliet is referred to as the
bride of death. This context is often complemented by the juxtaposition of light and
dark imagery throughout the play.
THEME SIX: BALANCE & MODERATION
Excesses in life, particularly emotion, and impulsivity can lead to tragedy. As Friar
Laurence insists, we should live our life in moderation: “Violent delights have violent
ends” and “Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow” (2.6). However, the passage of time in
the play is so swift that characters have little time to pause and contemplate the wisdom
of the Friar.
The excesses in the play include hasty love or infatuation and marriage (Romeo and
Juliet, Paris and Juliet), impetuous anger (Tybalt, Capulet and Mercutio), relentless
feuding (Montagues and Capulets), impulsive acts of revenge (Tybalt, Mercutio and
Romeo) and selfishness (all characters can be accused to some degree of thinking
only of their own needs and wants). How are the characters selfish: Friar Laurence,
Capulet, Lady Capulet, the Nurse, Romeo, Juliet, Tybalt, the families in general?
Perhaps, only Benvolio is selfless. Do you agree? All of these elements of excess in
themselves could be considered sub-themes.
MOTIF: LIGHT/DARK IMAGERY
One of the play's most consistent visual motifs (which supports the themes of the play) is
the contrast between light and dark, often in terms of night/day imagery. This contrast is
not given a particular metaphoric meaning—light is not always good, and dark is not
always evil. On the contrary, light and dark are generally used to provide a sensory
contrast and to hint at opposed alternatives. One of the more important instances of this
motif is Romeo's lengthy meditation on the sun and the moon during the balcony scene,
in which Juliet, metaphorically described as the sun, is seen as banishing the "envious
moon" and transforming the night into day (2.1.46). A similar blurring of night and day
occurs in the early morning hours after the lovers' only night together. Romeo, forced to
leave for exile in the morning, and Juliet, not wanting him to leave her room, both try to
pretend that it is still night, and that the light is actually darkness: "More light and light,
more dark and dark our woes" (3.5.36).
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CREATING THEME STATEMENTS:
Here are some possible theme statements that students might derive from Romeo and
Juliet:
1.
2.
3.
4.
People who act in a rash manner sometimes live to regret their actions.
Youth are often victims of their parents' inflexible decisions.
Youth do not understand that they sometimes need parental guidance.
Positive and negative human emotions, love and hate, are so closely related that
one often leads to the other.
5. Suffering often causes alienation, but paradoxically it is often the only means that
can bring people together.
6. Love can lead to unexpected suffering.
Can you think of others? Try creating three theme statements below.
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