The play Romeo and Juliet is a classic tale of friendship, love, betrayal, comedy, tragedy, and death. I t was written by William Shakespeare in and is considered one of his greatest tragedies. It has many different renditions and has been translated into many different languages. In the play “Romeo and Juliet” two young ambitious lovers put themselves in situations that would inevitably lead to their deaths. Was Romeo to blame or perhaps Juliet? Maybe the blame can be put on true love that would lead them to do certain things that were forbidden during those times.
In the relationship between Romeo and Juliet many questions are formed within my mind such as who had more power in the relationship between Romeo and Juliet, was it Romeo, was it Juliet, or was it the Love between them. Perhaps gender played a role in who had more power in the relationship. In this paper I intend on exploring the answers to these questions that are lingering in my mind. Throughout the play Juliet increasingly showed her power over Romeo, even though in those days, it was customary for men to show their power and dominance over women, this was not the case in this play.
This could have been because William Shakespeare was married and had daughters. The first instance that Juliet shows her indirect power over Romeo was the very moment Romeo laid his eyes upon her. In scene one, act five Romeo says to a servingman, “What ladies that which doth enrich the hand of yonder knight”, “Oh she doth teach the torch to burn bright! It seems she hangs upon the check of night as a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear beauty too rich for us, for earth to dear! ” This show power because earlier that day Romeo was mopping around crying about another young lady named Rosaline.
When he saw Juliet he completely forgot who Rosaline even was and went out of his way to talk to Juliet even though she was part of the family that his family was in a feud with. Power was also exhibited by Juliet because Romeo was so infatuated with her that he stood outside her window and talked about her like she was the sun in the sky herself even though he could have been killed for it. Another exhibit of power was when Marcutio and Tybalt fought and the end result was Marcutio being killed by Tybalt and Romeo killing Tybalt and then being banished from Verona by the king. All his happened because of the love between Romeo and Juliet. Another instance of Juliet’s power was when she unintentionally got the Prince and Romeo to fight to the death over her, even though she was not really dead. The result of this battle, ended in the Prince’s death. The next instance of Juliet’s power was at the end of the play when Romeo was so incredibly distraught over his lovers’ alleged demise that he purchased a vial of poison brewed by an apothecary to kill himself. After Romeo Kills Paris he lies down next to his beautiful Juliet and consumes the vial of poison so he can be with his lover once again.
In the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, Romeo also exhibits power. In the balcony scene between the two star- crossed lovers when the famous Romeo, Romeo where forth art thou Romeo speech Romeo tells Juliet that he wants to be with him. They both know that their love is forbidden, but Romeo convinces Juliet that they should run away out of Verona to get married and make beautiful love children. This shows power because they could have been banished or even killed because they could have caused the families to go to war and the kind already declared if they fought again they could been punished with death.
Romeo also show his power when in the end of the play Romeo see Juliet dead and drink the poison to kill himself, Juliet awakes to see her lover dead his power over her was so strong that she tried to kiss his lips in hopes of getting the poison into her system so she could be with her lover. When they plan failed she took Romeo’s dagger and plunged it into her own heart killing herself instantly. If that is power over someone I don’t know what is. The last Object that could have been seen as having power over the relationship between Romeo and Juliet was the Friar.
He was somewhat of a corky guy who brewed up remedies and was a good friend of Romeo and Juliet. He tried his best throughout the play to get the two lovers together and we all know how that turned out. The first instance of the friar showing his power over Romeo and Juliet’s relationship was when the two came to him for advice he came up with a plan to get the both out of the city and marry the two. Juliet was supposed to take a potion that the friar had concocted which was to make her seem if she had died but she would merely be a sleep. The family would bury her and she would wake up several hours later and meet up with her lover.
He writes to Romeo to let him know what the plan is but the letter never makes it to Romeo so he doesn’t know Juliet isn’t really dead. Then all the bad stuff happens and everyone dies. So yes the friar did have some sort of power over the relationship between Romeo and Juliet but it wasn’t good power at all. In conclusion Love will make you do some stupid things. Love is very powerful whether experienced by a man or woman, it can make you do some strange things. The story was a good one and Power over people can definitely be a bad thing, as you can see in Romeo and Juliet.