Essay On Love... Romeo And Juliet

Essay on Love

Love has in incredible, indescribable power over humanity. No one can explain the reason it makes people act the way it does; at times leading those under its spell to take risks. The power of love can be both healing and destructive and in Romeo and Juliet's case, eventually ends the feud between their families yet their overly passionate feelings also lead to their deaths.

Love's power, being a balance between a healing and destructive force, makes people act in strange ways. It can cause its victims to become confused with their emotions by creating thoughts of sorrow one moment and happy emotions the next. It brings impatient feelings along with relaxed ones and can lead a person to be misguided. In experiencing unrequited love, Romeo is sad and miserable, yet he enjoys his misery because he adores this woman. He explains his conflicting emotions poetically with these lines:

"O brawling love! O loving hate! O anything of nothing first create. O heavy lightness, serious vanity, misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms, feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health, still-walking sleep, that is not what it is! This love feel I, that feel no love in this."(174 p.10)

Romeo is glad to find Rosaline, a Capulet whom he believes to be perfect, irresistible but is sad because she feels nothing for him in return. Yet love is unpredictable, which can be destructive. Only days later, Romeo forgets his thoughts for Rosaline as quickly as he had first felt them the moment he lays his eyes on a second beauty. "Did my heart love 'till now? Foreswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty 'till this night" (51 p.27). This swift change in love's emotion can also be detected by Friar Lawrence's shocked response: "Holy Saint Francis, what a change is here! Is Rosaline, whom thou didst love so dear, so soon forsaken?"(61 p.42) Had Romeo never laid eyes on Juliet, his love sickness for Rosaline would never have healed. Because of their encounter, the mere thought of Rosaline vanished from his mind. Once this power is felt, one cannot return to their loveless life. When Juliet is asked her disposition to be married, she replies: "It is an honour that I dream not of."(66 p.19) But after meeting Romeo her feelings changed. "If that thy bent of love be honourable, thy purpose marriage, send me word tomorrow... And all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay, and follow thee my lord throughout the world."(143 p.38) The spell causes Juliet to forget all that once mattered to her, this aspect of love heals her heart, but she can unfortunately now only think of being with her love, Romeo. No one will ever understand the patterns in which love works to be healing and destructive.

The strong force in Romeo and Juliet's love eventually joins the opposing families. It gives the two lovers the courage to attempt things they would have otherwise never tried. Romeo and Juliet have always disagreed with their families' hatred towards one another and have no intent on continuing the war. Juliet speaks to herself on her balcony:

"'Tis but thy name that is my enemy; thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What's Montague? It is not hand nor foot nor arm nor face nor any other part belonging to a man... Romeo, doff thy name; and for thy name, which is not part of thee, take all myself."(38 p.34)

The couple will try to make a life together. Even if unsuccessful, this is the first step to ending the family quarrel. Romeo and Juliet fight against rather impossible odds, ending their love tragically. On discovering what has passed, the Prince of Verona makes apparent the tragedy the two families' hatred brought: "Where be these enemies? -Capulet! Montague! See what a scourge is laid upon your hate, that heaven finds means