Violence In Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet

Words: 329
Pages: 2

Throughout Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, love is the central idea in which the story circulates. The tale of the passionate and intensifying power love has on the characters and events of the story formulates an unthinkable journey. What most wouldn't expect to find accompanying this adventure of love is violence. Together, they create an everlasting theme of violence as an effect/consequence of love. Shakespeare illustrates the passionate love between Romeo and Juliet as an influential power to violence through various elements of the play. This message is consistently occuring and seen by several of the characters.
The appearance of violent action occurs in more ways than character to character. Violence takes form internally as both main characters allow love to drive them to thoughts of suicide. Once Romeo is no longer allowed back to Verona this means he is also banned from Juliet. Romeo shows how love has overtook him completely as it leads to the act of his threat to kill himself with a knife in Act 3. Juliet shows no difference in love's influence over her as she too states death will consume her if married to Paris. Shakespeare continues to carry this theme of love in connection with violence demonstrating that even with love being a happier emotion and feeling, it can ultimately be so passionate that it can have the same outcome as hate.
…show more content…
As numerous threats consume the dialogue and events throughout the play, love's power over takes all and results in the death of Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare uses symbols, such as the poison, to create the tragedy behind the death. With ongoing violence in the play it isn't hard to see that it will ultimately end the journey of the characters. However, it should also be noted that love is truly what is the overwhelming power and what influences such a dramatic