preview

The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet: Who Is to Blame for Their Deaths?

Good Essays

William Shakespeare, a world-renowned playwright, poet, and actor, has been known for centuries all around the world for his great variety of brilliant, poetic, and creative plays written during the Elizabethan Era. Shakespeare’s plays have the reputation of being among the greatest in the English language and Western literature, traditionally divided into the genres of tragedy, history, and comedy, and comprising of various imaginative settings, plots, characters, and conflicts. They have been translated into every major living language, in addition to being continually performed all around the world. Many of Shakespeare’s plays give insight on human nature, astonishingly able to characterize every emotion, strength, and weakness …show more content…

Most importantly, if the feud had not existed in the first place, Romeo and Juliet wouldn’t have died. Romeo and Juliet’s deaths can be seen as the ultimate privacy where they could love each other and be together in the afterlife, without worrying about the thoughts and objections of their families. All the other conflicts and problems faced by the couple in the play are deeply rooted and weaved into the feud itself and therefore, wouldn’t have occurred if the feud had not existed.
Furthermore, in the Elizabethan Era, traditional culture distinguished sharply between the nature of identity for men and women. A woman’s identity was conceived almost exclusively in relation to male authority and martial status. A woman was a daughter, wife, or widow expected to be chaste, silent, and above all, obedient. The patriarchal power structure inherent in Renaissance families, in which the father controls the action of all other family members, particularly women, places Juliet in an extremely vulnerable position. Her heart, in her family’s mind, is not hers to give. The authority of the father over the daughter during the Elizabethan Era can clearly be understood when the audience is introduced to Old Capulet, the patriarch of the Capulet family, father of Juliet, husband of Lady Capulet, and enemy, for unexplained reasons, of Montague. Though Old Capulet truly loves his

Get Access