Extended Response: Representations of Love with 'Romeo and Juliet'

Love is one of the main themes behind Shakespeare’s play ‘Romeo and Juliet’. This theme of love is portrayed through many different representations of love. The play starts of with Romeo being hopelessly and immensely in love with Rosaline. Romeo describes this kind of love like torture, as he cannot do anything but think about her. “Not mad, but bound more than a madman is; shut up in prison, kept without my food, whipt and tormented…” (Act 1, Scene 2, Lines 50-52). This line from the play, whilst it is a slight over exaggeration it shows how tortured Romeo is by love, it is all consuming and overwhelming.

Quite different to Romeo’s representation of love, is the viewpoint that love is all about the physical and sexual aspects. The main character that has this viewpoint is Mercutio. Mercutio’s character often makes dirty humor and refers to the fact that love is for fun and is only about the physical aspects. “If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark” (Act 2, Scene 1, Line 33). This line is referring to the fact that Mercutio thinks that love is all about appearances, because he thinks that without appearance there would be no love.

Finally the last main representation of love is the love that Romeo and Juliet feel for each other. This love is all about fate and what is written in the stars. They feel as though it is their destiny to be together. Romeo sees Juliet to be light that has pulled him out of the darkness he was in because of Rosaline. “The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars, as daylight doth lamp; her eyes in heaven” (Act 2, Scene 2, Lines 19-20). This shows how much Romeo is influenced by the fact that she is so light and bright like a star or an angel. It also offers a contrast from the darkness he felt for Rosaline. Shakespeare’s technique of ‘foreshadowing’ is used to hint at the fact that fate will take its part, and because Romeo and Juliet’s love relates so much to the stars and destiny, it mainly applies to them. “A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life” (Act 1, Prologue, Line 6). This line hints to the fact that they are going to die even before the play begins, but it also highlights how it is their fate and that it is destined to happen just like their love.