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Parents In Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet

Good Essays

In Romeo and Juliet, perhaps the most famous tragic love story of all time, the titular characters’ courtship and subsequent marriage is constructed in a way that portrays love as a powerful driving force that, when strong enough, is more important than family, loyalties, and societal norms. As such, Romeo and Juliet’s love tears them apart from their respective families and loyalties, which in turn defies everything they have been taught by their families and society as a whole; Montagues and Capulets are mortal enemies and marriage is not for love, but for connecting powerful families. In their courtship and marriage, there are various parts that are essential to the whole. For one, the presence of advisors in Romeo and Juliet’s lives is …show more content…

Juliet’s parents are much more present, but only physically so. Neither is emotionally attached to Juliet nor do they have her best interests at heart, which pushes her towards the Nurse, who she has an emotional attachment to already. Not much can be said about Romeo’s parents as advisors, only that they seem to be more affectionate and caring towards Romeo; they are concerned about Romeo’s melancholy state over Rosaline, and Lady Montague later dies of after Romeo’s exile. Juliet’s parents, on the other hand, are very poor advisors who seek to enhance their power and wealth through her upcoming availability to marry, as evidenced through their insistence on her marriage. They do not listen to Juliet’s protests over the marriage to Paris and instead send the Nurse to discuss it with her. Additionally, Capulet’s threat to disown Juliet displays his lack of any redeeming qualities as an advisor to her. This lack of involvement and beneficial advisement by Romeo and Juliet’s parents is essential to Shakespeare’s construction of romance in this play; as their romance is doomed to fail, it is only fitting that it would not be supported by the parents, as was necessary of the time. For a marriage to be supported by the parents of the bride and groom meant that it would be a successful match for both families, but a marriage that was purely out of love between the bride and groom was viewed as a failure, one that would not provide any benefits to either family. Romeo and Juliet’s marriage was of the latter, and did indeed

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