I just finished reading Romeo and Juliet for the first time. At the beginning I found reading right from the script really boring and frustrating because I simply couldn’t understand the Shakespearean form of English. What I found interesting was that as I read through the the other scenes I started to like trying to figure out what Shakespeare was trying to share with us. Although I still found it more challenging then normal I think I wouldn’t mind reading some more “raw” Shakespeare. That is as long as I still had some modern English summarizing what was said so I could make sure I was on track. I am curious, did any of you guys experience the same thing as me? Leave a comment if you want to share. As I have come to the end of the play one big question in my mind was who’s fault Romeo and Juliets death was. As I further considered this question, I thought it was a great opportunity to write about it.
If you haven’t read my other posts about Romeo and Juliet I suggest you check them out as they might help you understand what I’m about to tell you better:
This question is not as clear as some of you might think. Many of you may have different opinions then me and that’s ok. But hopefully I can change your mind just a little bit. To me there are only really two viable options for who should take the blame for Romeo and Juliet’s death. One of them is what I think most people would instantly think of so let me tell you about that.
Option 1: The Montague and Capulet family’s
The first and most obvious person/people who would be responsible for Romeo and Juliets death would be their family’s. The Montagues and the Capulets are the rival family’s in Verona, the city where the play takes place. They have some long forgotten feud which creates lots of unnecessary violence and death, like we talked about in my previous post. Romeo is from the Montague family and Juliet is from the Capulets, so you can see the problem being created. Both sides of the family’s would be horrified to find out that their children are married. Because of this Romeo and Juliet tell almost nobody that they are married. This leads to Juliet taking a drug which renders her basically dead until the next morning, and the only reason she takes this is to get out of having to sleep with her suitor Paris. This is what sets of Romeo killing his self and Juliet then killing her self for real. All of this would have been so easily avoided if the two family’s could have solved their feud so that Romeo and Juliets marriage had been accepted. So now that I have said all that, you may be thinking that this is the group of people I blame for the death of Romeo and Juliet. You would be wrong, so let me tell you about the second option.
Option 2: Romeo and Juliet Themselves
The slide depicting the pre-1950s motocross bicyles. Although it is undeniably a good looking machine. It is heavy, slow and expensive.
In my opinion the real people to blame for Juliet and Romeos death would be, well, Romeo and Juliet. There are plenty of reasons for why I think this. The first is the fact that Romeo and Juliet got married very young, without consulting there parents. I think if they had waited to get married and tried to bring their family’s together or at least told them that they were getting married, the events leading up to their death would have been avoided by doing this. But what I think is the most obvious piece of evidence that Romeo and juliets death was their own fault is the fact that they are the ones who took their own life’s. If Romeo had not been so madly in love with Juliet he would have never taken his own life right when he found her dead body. This would have given Juliet the chance to wake up and then of course she would have had no reason to take her own life. I truly think that this is one of the most unrealistic parts of Romeo and Juliet. Although it was very dramatic for the two young lovers to take their own lives in the name of love, I think the chose to kill yourself is such a hard thing to commit to that Romeo and Juliet wouldn’t have had the power of will to do it.
So those are my to opinions of who is responsible for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet, I think I should have been able to get you on my side for at least one of them. Another interesting question that my teacher gave me to think about was whether to make the play work, Romeo and Juliet had to die in the end? Could there have been a happy outcome to this tragic story?
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