Student Name: Leung Ming Ki
Class: 3A
The 28th Annual Book Report Competition for Secondary School Students
Title: Romeo and Juliet
Author: William Shakespeare.
Words: 728
‘Romeo and Juliet’ is a well-known love tragedy, which takes place in Verona City in the sixteenth
century. There were two hostile family groups – the Montagues and the Capulets - who had hated each
other for hundreds of years. The feuding had gone on for so long, they had actually forgotten why they
did hate one another. Each family gave birth to a pair of unfortunate lovers- the star-crossed lovers,
Romeo and Juliet.
At a party held in the Capulet’s mansion, Romeo sees Juliet and it was love at first sight for him. She
wass attracted to him too. For the audience, Romeo’s love for Juliet is hard to trust at this point because
he went to the party to find Rosalind, but found Juliet instead. His love was very changeable. However,
Romeo sucked into Juliet’s backyard where in the famous balcony scene they expressed their love for
one another. Although they both knew the hatred between their families would be an obstacle, they still
held a secret wedding ceremony with the help of Friar Lawrence, who thought he could mend the
feuding between the two families.
The vendetta, however, between the two families arose again. In an unfortunate string of incidents,
Romeo killed Tybalt (Juliet’s cousin) and the Prince banished him to Mantua.
At that time, Juliet’s parents wanted her to marry Paris – a very rich, but also a much older man. Her
parents, of course, did not know she had already married Romeo. With the help of Friar Lawrence,
Juliet took a potion that would make her appear dead. A message was sent to Romeo that this was the
case, but the message was never delivered. When he found Juliet he thought she was dead and so
poisoned himself. Juliet, upon awakening from the potion’s effect found Romeo dead and also took her
own life.
What does this love story teach us? Although the tale of the young lovers is a very sad story their love
eventually prevailed over the prejudices of their feuding families. Love gave them courage to pursue
free love and to fight against the hatred between their parents. Juliet did not retreat but became brave
when she pursued her true love. She maintained her love for Romeo even though she knew that Romeo
was her enemy’s son. Upon the death of both their children the two families finally saw how pathetic
they had been. The death of the star-crossed lovers eliminated the hatred.
The time that Romeo and Juliet were in love was too short. They had only known each other for
twenty-four hours, so they had not experienced anything together, yet they got married so soon. This is
not true love, but blind love. Also, because Romeo changed whom he loved early on in the play, I
believe his love would not have lasted long. Their love came so fast that I think it would fade away
quickly too. They were both too young so they could not understand what true love is, but just the
desire for it. This could only be a period of immature love.
Another point is that they are too impulsive and irrational. Although I admire their courage to pursue
their love, I do not agree with them in that they ended their precious lives. They died together and did
not think about the consequences. They were impulsive and blindly exchanged love with their lives.
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They were selfish in that they only considered themselves and not the feelings of others. Did they know
how sad their families would be?
Finally, from this story I learnt that hatred is a destructive force that will only make a tragedy happen
and bring only misfortune for all the people of the world – the Montagues, the Capultes and Romeo and
Juliet. When the family members felt angry with the others they used weapons to fight and kill them.
Innocent people around them are affected. Because of the hatred between the Capulets and the
Montagues Romeo and Juliet’s love is hampered and must be hidden. If there was no hatred between
the two families, Romeo and Juliet would not have died and the tragedy would have been averted.
Therefore, we should all learn to put aside hatred and learn to forgive others. Peace is the best way
forward and this remains true even today.
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