Romeo and Juliet: Test of Bonds

By Gregory Gin, Romeo and Juliet: A Facebook Tragedy

            Though valued for its rich romance and tragedy, Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” derives from the social bonds that both separate and join individuals, families, and populations.  From Prince Escalus, who is connected to all his citizens, to the lowly servants, who are dedicated to their masters, each citizen of Verona shares a connection with another individual or family.  Throughout the course of the play, various characters create and destroy bonds with each other.  Romeo and Juliet, the two tragic heroes of the play, precariously balance their newly formed marriage and their family bonds.  When these two social connections come into conflict with each other, the tragedy begins.  Torn between their fledgling love and their duty to their families, the lovers succumb to the social pressures asserted by their families.  These networks are not equal in this respect.  The underlying connotations suggest that the lovers’ failure to honor their romantic bond over their family bond leads to tragedy.  William Shakespeare suggests that this emphasis on familial duty and hatred over romance leads to a figurative death of the future of society.

            Before the events of the play, Romeo and Juliet must have been taught to hate the Capulets and Montagues, respectively, unconditionally, but these life lessons they learned have been forgotten.  Their whole lives have been devoted to the destruction of the other family and the ancient feud that drove the two families to hate each other.  Shakespeare relates in his prologue that, “From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, / Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean, / From forth the fatal loins of these two foes / A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life; / . . . / Doth with their death bury their parents' strife” (Prologue, 3-8).  Shakespeare gives no reason to support the family feud besides an ancient fight that no one remembers.  In essence, the feud is an irrational past conflict that obstructs the formation of new bonds that would benefit all the citizens of Verona.  It is a past grudge that has lost all meaning.  Even with these values instilled within Romeo and Juliet since birth, they still break free to love each other.  The subject of the fight is best captured within the first scene of act one, in which the servants of the two families fight.  The prince best captures the elementary components of the ancient feud as, “bred of an airy word / . . . / Have thrice disturbed the quiet of our streets / And made Verona's ancient citizens / Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments / To wield old partisans, in hands as old, / Cankered with peace, to part your cankered hate” (I.i.88-94).  The prince realizes that this feud, which disturbs the peace of his city, stems from some airy, or trivial.  This family feud has created an unsafe environment for the citizens of Verona, and for naught a reason.  Even the silliest of reasons, such as making a certain face at a member of the enemy family, can escalate the tension into a full battle.  Romeo and Juliet attempt to escape from the past sins of their families, only to falter at the last moment.

            Romeo is an amorous, young man, and the sole heir to the Montague name.  This fact puts incredible pressure on the youth to continue the family line.  In reaction to this demand to produce heirs, Romeo falls easily in and out of love.  When Romeo is first met, he is sulking over his failed attempt at wooing Rosaline.  He despondently tells Benvolio, “that love, whose view is muffled still, / Should without eyes see pathways to his will! / Where shall we dine?  O me! What fray was here? Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all. / Here's much to do with hate, but more with love” (I, i, 170-174).  Shakespeare is foreshadowing the romance that will come between Romeo and Juliet.  For Romeo, Love is blind and will lead him to a lover despite any family disagreements.  He questions what has happened before he came, but later declares that it does not matter.  The hate between the families will foster a sense of shame in the lovers for courting each other.  In order for their love to prosper, they must overcome the hate that makes up their initial feelings for each other.  Romeo experiences confusion when he discovers Juliet's family allegiance, “Is she a Capulet? / O dear account! my life is my foe's debt” (I.5.118-119).  Romeo knows that once he has fallen in love with Juliet, he has turned his forsaken his family.  His family demand, that Romeo find a wife and reproduce, now comes into conflict with his family's desire to decimate the Capulet family.  Romeo can not satisfy both demands, and he accepts Juliet as his potential lover.  In the first half of the play Romeo chooses his romantic demand over his family's hatred, and the couple is able to spend time with each other.  Romeo's actions show a conscious decision to pursue a romantic bond over his family bond.  Through his rejection of his family's decision to hate the Capulets unconditionally, Romeo is ensuring a more peaceful future between the two families.  In this way too does Juliet act against her family's wishes and strives towards a peaceful coexistence between the two families.

               Juliet is seen as an innocent, beautiful young girl who has just come of age in the city of Verona.  Juliet reciprocates Romeo's feelings with fervor of her own.  During their famous balcony scene, Juliet proclaims to Romeo, “Deny thy father and refuse they name; Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, / And I'll no longer be a Capulet” (II.ii.34-36).  Her words speak of the romance between the star-crossed lovers.  They would forget their names, or their family duties, in order to enjoy their rapture with each other.  This new bond represents a new era of peace between the warring families.  Instead of two feuding families, there would be one family that coexists with Verona.  Yet, Juliet knows that she is defying her family and father by pursuing this relationship.  Her father demands that she find a husband worthy of Capulet.  She laments that, “[her only love, sprung from [her] only hate! / Too early seen unknown, and I known too late! / . . . / That I must love a loathed enemy” (I.v.139-142).  She acknowledges Romeo as her family enemy, but denies what her family has taught for romance.  She places all her hope with the new bond that is created with Romeo.  Despite his status as her enemy, she sets aside these notions of Romeo and allows herself to love him.  In her first act in coming of age, she rejects what she has known her entire life for an eternal bond with Romeo.  Their dispositions come to a forefront during the Capulet party.

            While pining for the lovely Rosaline, Benvolio attempts to ease Romeo's troubled spirits by crashing the Capulet's party for Juliet.  Against his better judgment, Romeo decides to attend the party at Lord Capulet's house.  No matter the intent of a character in Romeo and Juliet, the family feud blinds rash people.  Upon seeing Romeo at the Capulet masque, Tybalt immediately tells his page to, “Fetch me my rapier, boy.  What, dares the slave / Come hither, covered with an antic face, / To fleer and scorn at our solemnity” (I.v.56-58).  Tybalt, who represents the individual who succumbs to the family feud and family duty, readily prepares himself to duel Romeo for crashing the party.  Unlike Tybalt, even the Lord Capulet accepts Romeo at his party, suggesting that the Lord Capulet has lost some of his honor and masculinity.  Romeo is shown to be in direct contrast to Tybalt as, “a portly gentleman, / And, to say truth, Verona brags of him / To be a virtuous and well-governed youth” (I.v.67-69).  Romeo is describe as a gentleman and love by his actions.  Unlike Tybalt, who readily draws into battle, Romeo has a respected reputation in Verona.  He thinks before he acts, and does not duel without reason.  Unfortunately, Tybalt, who represents the ancient family duty to hatred that stirs the Montagues and Capulets against each other, confronts Romeo in the following days.

            This confrontation between the two boys awakens the old family feud to new levels.  Initially, Romeo refuses to fight Tybalt, because he had just married Juliet.  Romeo has formed a new bond of family between the Montagues and the Capulets that he does not wish to break: “Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee / Doth much excuse the appertaining rage / To such a greeting.  Villain am I none. / Therefore farewell.  I see thou knowest me not” (III.i.61-64).  Romeo's marriage to Juliet causes him to regard Tybalt as a family member.  This new bond represents the new hope for the feuding families.  Yet, this bond is only known to the friar, Romeo, and Juliet.  Tybalt sees Romeo, the ideal lover who holds romantic love above family duty, as a coward.  Romeo goes so far as to say, “[I] love thee better than thou canst devise / Till thou shalt know the reason of my love; / And so, good Capulet, which name I tender / As dearly as mine own” (III.i.68-71).  Romeo's supposed cowardice spurs Mercutio to action and to his death, breaking the newly formed family bond that sprung from the romance of Romeo and Juliet.  With the exile of Romeo and Tybalt's death, the family feud escalates to new heights.  Romeo acts on the family hatred for the Capulets and his shattered bond with Mercutio to slay Tybalt.  Acting on his rash behavior, Romeo realizes the great injustice he has done to Juliet.  Juliet, upon learning of Romeo's exile, sinks into the depths of depression.

            Right after the death of Tybalt and the exile of Romeo, Juliet falls into a grave sickness derived from the loss of her love and the loss of her family member.  She is conflicted as to whom she should mourn for, Romeo, her husband, or Tybalt, her cousin.  Juliet's predicament symbolizes the torn feelings the lovers have between their family duty and their romantic duty.  When asked if she will wail at Tybalt's corpse, Juliet says, “Wash they his wounds with tears?  Mine shall be spent, / When their's are dry, for Romeo's banishment” (III.ii.130-131).  Juliet chooses to spend her tears on the banished Romeo, and on the love that has been exiled from Verona.  Juliet chooses to mourn romance over family duty, further emphasizing her devotion to a romantic bond over her family bond.  She does not shed a tear for the family member who could have killed her husband.  Yet, though Juliet remains devoted to her love, outside influences try to force the lovers apart.  Lord Capulet, thinking that Juliet is wasting away due to Tybalt's death, arranges a marriage between Juliet and Paris.  Paris, as Prince Escalus' kinsman, would also allow the Capulets to gain the upper hand in their conflict with the Montagues.  After hearing of her refusal, Capulet tells Juliet, “Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch! / I tell thee what – get thee to church a Thursday / Or never after look me in the face. / Speak not, reply not, do not answer me!” (III.v.161-164). Capulet asserts the full force of family duty onto Juliet.  Juliet experiences the futility of her situation as a female in that misogynist time.  Juliet can do no more than honor her family duty, mimicking Romeo's act of killing Tybalt.  Forced between her love and her family, Juliet chooses to use all her resources to escape her family and rejoin her love.

            The finale of the play climaxes in the double suicide of the two young lovers.  What once could have turned into a comedy, now turns tragic as the news of Juliet's supposed death causes Romeo to poison himself.  Upon waking next to her dead husband, Juliet commits suicide with a dagger.  The bright future of Verona has been lost in a single night.  As Prince Escalus puts this unfortunate event, “Where be these enemies?  Capulet, Montague, / See what a scourge is laid upon your hate, / That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love. / And I, for winking at our discords too, / Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punished” (V, iii, 291-295).  The Montagues have lost their only son, Romeo, and the Capulets have lost their only daughter, Juliet.  Within this series of events, the Prince of Verona loses all his kinsmen, Mercutio and County Paris, too.  The end of the play emphasizes that the youths of the nobility are nearly all slain, and that the future of Verona is in peril.  Romeo and Juliet, two great minds, can no longer promise peace with their marriage.  Though the Prince orders peace between the two families, Shakespeare ends on an unsure note.  Montague says, “I will raise [Juliet's] statue in pure gold, / . . . / There shall no figure at such rate be set / As that of true and faithful Juliet” (V, iii, 299-302), and Capulet answers, “As rich shall Romeo's by his lady's lie - / Poor sacrifices of our enmity” (V, iii, 303-304).  These last few lines suggest that the memory of the ill-fated youths will become another competition between the two families that will spur on the cycle of hatred that plagues Verona.  The family duty and hatred of the other family has turned into a different sort of competition that suggests these two families will fail to reach peace.

            Throughout Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the importance of romantic bonds over family duty is expounded time and time again.  Shakespeare not only stresses that romantic bonds lead to a peaceful society, but also emphasizes the role of these romantic bonds continuing the very life of a city, the children.  In the case of Tybalt, his childhood was so warped by the enmity his family had for the Montagues that he could not coexist with any Montague.  Tybalt was just one victim of the family duty to hatred that stifled societal growth.  Romeo and Juliet, on the opposite end of the spectrum, respected family values to a point, but have forsaken their families for the opportunity to have love.  These two individuals represent the hope of Verona.  Romeo is an absolute, level-headed gentleman, while Juliet is a beautiful lady.  Within their personalities, the conflict saturated Verona could have lived in a golden age of prosperity.  Romance, not duty and hatred, makes up the components of a successful society.