This Romeo and Juliet review and analysis contains spoilers.
3…2…1…
They both die at the end.
Actually, that’s not a spoiler. You’re told from the very beginning of the play that the two main characters are destined to die:
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life.
With that, Shakespeare throws down a challenge.
“I’m gonna tell you how this story ends,” he says. “And you’re STILL going to be hooked all the way through it.”
And hooked you are.
Romeo and Juliet Analysis & Review
Choose the 1968 Zeffirelli version of Romeo and Juliet (Amazon) over the Baz Luhrmann version.
Romeo and Juliet is often used as an example of one of Shakespeare’s immature plays.
It’s the tenth play in his oeuvre and up until that point in his playwright career, the Bard had focused primarily on writing historical plays.
Romeo and Juliet seems to be somewhat of a turning point, ushering in many of Shakespeare’s more well-developed but still light plays like A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Much Ado About Nothing.
It wouldn’t be until almost a decade later that Shakespeare’s greatest dramatic achievements would appear: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth.
Put up against those plays, of course Romeo and Juliet isn’t as mature.
But put up against the plays of any other dramatist at the time, or at any point in human history, Romeo and Juliet stands as an extraordinary literary accomplishment.
Romeo and Juliet absurd plot summary:
Romeo and Juliet is such an achievement of dramatic style, such a timeless rendering of universal archetypes, that many overlook the absurdity of the plot.
Amidst the senseless warring of two families, lover-boy Romeo pines away for basic bitch Rosaline.
The same day this pathetic beta is yearning for her, Juliet catches his eye and suddenly Rosaline is completely forgotten and Romeo wants what he cannot have – to drink Juliet’s bath water.
Romeo couldn’t have Rosaline either, but if he were to have Juliet it would come at a much higher price – death – so, naturally, like a child, he wants that one.
Juliet, who is all of just thirteen years old, is being married off by her neglectful parents to a drip called Paris. So she decides the best course of sticking it to her parents is to bone the enemy of her family not long after she meets him and then marry him in secret.
Romeo: O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied? Juliet: What satisfaction canst thou have tonight? ?
Meanwhile, Romeo’s deranged, possibly schizophrenic, friend Mercutio starts playing silly buggers with a sword with Tybalt, Juliet’s cousin.
Romeo tries to break up the fight, but only ends up getting his mate murdered.
So Romeo kills Tybalt.
One less family member at the secret Romeo-Juliet wedding, I guess.
One thing leads to another and, thirteen-year-old and highly impressionable child Juliet, decides to buy a herbal drink from the friendly friar that will put her into a coma that makes it look like she’s dead.
Romeo hears his precious Juliet’s dead, so he goes and buys himself some poison and it’s off to the Capulet crypt.
Romeo finds Juliet’s fiancé mourning and adds a second homicide to his rap sheet.
Then he drinks the poison and dies.
Juliet wakes up, finds the perpetrator of her statutory rape dead, and offs herself too.
Romeo and Juliet is supposed to be absurd.
The absurdity is actually a mirror reflection of our absurd world.
Young irrational lovers can see the folly of their ways in Romeo.
And anyone observing the shit-show that is modern day politics can observe the absurdity of tribalism in how the Montague-Capulet feud plays out.
In fact, right from the beginning of the play we see the core theme of Romeo and Juliet.
The theme of Romeo and Juliet is NOT love.
Say “Romeo and Juliet” to anyone who hasn’t actually seen the play and they’ll think it’s a tragedy about young lovers.
No, it’s a farce about how identity politics and the ugly sides of tribalism negatively impact the individual – especially the easily corruptible, easily influenced young.
People today are losing friends and not talking to family members because one side voted Trump, the other voted Clinton. Or one side voted to Leave and the other voted Remain.
Politic opinions become violent – especially wherever groups congregate.
I’ve met plenty of people who are on the polar opposite side of wherever I sit politically and I can’t say I’ve met anyone who has been unpleasant on the individual level. But get them in a group… Boy, what a different story.
Romeo and Juliet is also a study in what happens when you don’t apply stoic philosophy to your life.
Most people going through life operating from what the psychologists call an external locus of control. That means they believe that outside events – fate, other people, society, politics – have the ability to dictate their emotional and behavioural response.
This is NOT how you want to live your life.
You want an internal locus of control.
How do you get an internal locus of control?
How do you take the responsibility for your life into your own hands?
You read Stephen Covey and you read Viktor Frankl and you read Aristotle.
You also do the exact opposite of anything Romeo does.
Benvolio: What sadness lengthens Romeo’s hours?
Romeo: Not having that which, having, makes them short.
Benvolio: In love?
Romeo: Out —
Benvolio: Of love?
Romeo: Out of her favour where I am in love.
(I.i.162-168)
Romeo’s behaviour and mood is completely controlled by pleasure – specifically the absence of pleasure.
If Romeo had exercised the virtue of temperance, as detailed by Aristotle, he wouldn’t have made such rash decisions and he would likely still be alive.
The entire play is a case study in how bad things happen when you can’t exercise restraint.
Romeo can’t exercise restraint with his love – so bad shit happens.
Mercutio, Tybalt, and the rest of those tribalistic morons butting heads, can’t exercise restraint when it comes to hate – so bad shit happens.
Romeo and Juliet is also a display of what love is NOT.
You cannot fall in love in one day.
Love at first sight does not exist.
Though Juliet clearly did not want to be married off, she would have statistically had a happier life if she had been.
Puppy love and lust fades quickly.
I love the Franco Zeffirelli adaptation of Romeo and Juliet because you can clearly see on Juliet’s face (played by the gorgeous Olivia Hussey) when she meets Romeo (played by the gorgeous Zac Efron lookalike Leonard Whiting) that she only says “wait a goddamn minute” when she sees his face at the ball.
Love that lasts and relationships that last are built on a mature foundation of shared principles.
The reason why most arranged marriages do well is because they are typically chosen by the parents based on which families are the strongest and most compatible.
Romeo and Juliet is also a comedy of errors.
Yes, I know that technically Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy because every motherfucker dies at the end, but every comedy is basically a tragedy until the end and every tragedy is basically a comedy until the end (read more here).
Shakespeare does this kind of comedy of errors extremely well. He does it better in Much Ado About Nothing (my favourite Shakespeare play) and does it delightfully well in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. But he does it well in Romeo and Juliet too.
The characters either don’t understand each other or simply aren’t listening.
In a wonderful scene near the beginning, we see Juliet’s mum try to talk to her in private but realises she has no fucking idea how to communicate with her daughter so she calls the nurse, who breastfed Juliet not too long ago, back into the room to help her.
And even the woman who fed Juliet as a baby does not listen to Juliet even when Juliet is being crystal fucking clear!
When asked what she thinks of marrying Paris, we get this lovely exchange:
Juliet: It is an honour that I dream not of.
Nurse: An honour! Were not I thine only nurse,
I would say thou hadst suck’d the wisdom from thy teat.
(I.iii.66-68)
Misinterpretation runs throughout Romeo and Juliet.
Actually it’s a common theme that Shakespeare returns to again and again through all of his plays. And as he matures as a writer, his ability to weave this theme through his narratives only gets stronger.
We see it through the artifice of a play-within-a-play. We see it with characters overhearing each other and eavesdropping on conversations, often with dire results (poor Polonius who gets stabbed through a curtain by Hamlet). We see it in the masked balls, like the one in Romeo and Juliet.
And misinterpretation, while typically accidental and the result of conflicting character desires, is often deliberate too. Like we see in this exchange here between Romeo and Mercutio:
Romeo: I dreamt a dream to-night.
Mercutio: And so did I.
Romeo: Well, what was yours?
Mercutio: That dreamers often lie.
Romeo: In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.
(I.iv.49-53)
Stay away from Shakespeare plays if you don’t like puns because the Bard is pun-heavy.
But what I love here is this idea of creating your own reality.
It’s ironic that fate is a theme laid out from the start. The two star-cross’d lovers never had a chance when the playwright begins by saying they’ll be dead by the end of the play – their fate is sealed from the beginning. And, as we’ve already said, Romeo and basically every other person in the play has an external locus of control.
But there’s still this theme of:
IF YOU CAN DREAM IT, IT CAN BECOME REALITY.
If Romeo actually took his life by the balls and stopped being a pussy with women, he could have actually developed into a Tony Robbins motivational speaker.
What is the secret to creating the life of your dreams?
To dream things true.
Visualise.
See the future you want.
But you can also visualise a nightmare.
We are all masters of visualisation, but we typically visualise the wrong things.
We imagine the worst is going to happen and then it does.
Romeo seals his fate with what he dreams true:
Romeo: my mind misgives
Some consequence yet hanging in the stars
(I.iv.106-107)
Why is it important for us to pick up on these themes of misunderstanding and dreaming in Romeo and Juliet?
Because it has real application to our everyday lives.
The characters in Romeo and Juliet, just like the people you see in your everyday life, are running around blind to reality, blind to the desires, wants, and needs of others, blind to how they should interact in the world.
Not only is it the case that what you dream can turn into reality, but what you say can become reality too!
There’s this theory of linguistic relativity, called the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, that posits language creates thought.
Basically, if you say enough racist things, even jokingly, your mind becomes racist.
What you say affects your how you feel and see the world.
If you’re feeling depressed, saying that you’re depressed only reinforces it.
Whereas if you wake up each morning and tell yourself how much you love your life and express gratitude, you’ll start to bring forth positivity into your life.
It’s a cognitive bias thing.
You know how when you buy a new car suddenly it seems like every tenth car on the road is the same car as yours when you never saw them before?
You get what you focus on.
And what does Romeo focus on?
Romeo: Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!
For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.
(I.v.52-53)
He focuses on “love”.
But love to Romeo is all looks-based.
And Romeo puts the pussy on a pedestal.
He tells himself he never saw such beauty until that night. So his words make it true.
Why does Shakespeare continue to use imagery of day and night and fires burning bright?
Romeo talks about how Juliet teaches the torches to burn bright.
It’s not just because Shakespeare wants to draw attention to how blind, perhaps wilfully blind, these characters are. It’s because language shapes reality.
God said, “Let there be light!”
The “word became flesh”.
Which brings us on to the most powerful running motif in Romeo and Juliet: NAMES.
Romeo: Is she a Capulet?
O dear account! My life is my foe’s debt.
(I.v.118-119)
Romeo learns her name and in that instant Juliet goes from becoming the object of his desire to his enemy.
Nurse: His name is Romeo, and a Montague,
The only son of your great enemy.
Juliet: My only love sprung from my only hate!
(I.v.136-138)
Juliet learns Romeo’s name and in that instant HE becomes her enemy too.
The name is uttered, the enemy is created.
Juliet: O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet
(II.ii.33-36)
Why is it that the voice of sense and reason here is the 13-year-old girl in the play?
Juliet’s only just started getting her period and she talks more sense than everyone else in the play.
She’s saying, “Fuck your name, Romeo.” Names =/= reality. Or, to put it more precisely, because names = reality, you must change or deny your name.
Take a moment to appreciate this beautiful monologue from the momentary voice of reason in Romeo and Juliet:
Juliet: ’Tis but thy name that is my enemy
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? It is nor hand nor foot,
Nor arm nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for thy name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.
(II.ii.38-48)
I’ve been on dates where we were having a great time. Wine flowing. Conversation flowing. Smiles, laughter, common ground established. Flirting. And then…
“So how did you vote in the referendum?”
The moment the word “Brexit” leaves your lips, smiles drop. The name!
The name is enough to damn you!
The name is synonymous with racism to anyone on the other side of the fence.
It’s the same in America. How much is loaded in the name Trump?
Romeo: By a name
I know not how to tell thee who I am.
My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,
Because it is an enemy to the
Had I it written, I would tear the word.
(II.ii.54-57)
Be careful what you dream of.
Be careful what you speak of.
And be careful when it comes to names.
Unless you want to end up like Romeo, you should really examine the language you use and don’t attach your sense of self-worth, validation, or emotional health to names.
Friar Lawrence is another momentary voice-of-reason in Romeo and Juliet.
We have this exchange between Romeo and the Friar:
Friar Lawrence: God pardon sin! Wast thou with Rosaline?
Romeo: With Rosaline? My ghostly father, no;
I have forgot that name; and that name’s woe.
(II.iii.44-46)
Because Romeo has forgotten the name, he is able to forget the woe.
Woe and name come hand-in-hand.
But this leads Friar Lawrence to deliver this slam against Romeo:
Friar Lawrence: So soon forsaken? Young men’s love then lies
Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.
(II.iii.67-68)
I struggle not to pause and take a moment to appreciate and analyse the poetry in this couplet.
I want these Shakespeare play reviews to be grounded in the practical – how can we take the poetic and suck out the practical lessons we can apply to our own lives?
But let’s stop and just feel that poetry on our lips.
Look at the placement of the words at the end of each line – “lies” and “eyes”.
Lies means one thing in this sentence, but the word’s placement, intricately bound up with its rhyming partner, really hammers home the double meaning of falsehood.
Shakespeare could have written this couple to end with the word “hearts”.
But that would alter the meaning and lean on a theme that is absent from Romeo and Juliet.
This play is not about love, not about matters of the heart.
Romeo and Juliet is about how our eyes can deceive us.
Love based on lust is a lie.
Friar Lawrence also hits hard with this pithy maxim:
Friar Lawrence: Women may fall, when there’s no strength in men.
(II.iii.80)
Isn’t this so true?
We see the ugly sides of tribalism, one family fighting another, one political side fighting another, one religion fighting another, but doesn’t it come back, like everything, to sex?
Romeo is the archetypical weak man, overcome by a young girl’s beauty because he isn’t getting enough tail, whilst Juliet is the archetypical fallen woman whose fall is the result of following a weak man – it’s a reverse Garden of Eden situation.
Look to the modern day and everywhere men are complaining about fallen women you will see a society comprised of weak men.
Men and women may not die physically in these places, but it is very much a suicide of the soul.
What did you think of Romeo and Juliet?
What themes, verses, character traits, ideas leapt out at you?