Romeo and Juliet - Love Inevitably Causes Pain

The love between friends and family, although shown in different ways, is as strong as that between lovers, if not the same, and it contains just as much power for destruction. Romeo and Juliet first met at a party held by the Capulets, both of them looking for different things. Romeo was searching for a response from the cold, unreciprocated Rosaline, and Juliet was simply looking to be there, preferably away from Count Paris, a man asking for her hand in marriage- or at least for her

Bluntly stated, love causes pain. Shakespeare wouldn’t have been able to create Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet without it. They wouldn’t have loved and lost, they wouldn’t have cried to each other, killed one another, and disobeyed their parents. Love was created in Verona, Italy to destroy itself. Love was created in the entire universe to do so. When we find ourselves “in love” we are in great pain filled with feelings of probable loss, of jealously, of anxiety, of abandonment. We have these feelings of pain because we perpetuate them out of our feelings of lack of self-worth. These feelings become intensified by our feelings of insecurity. We are unwilling to let go of these outlooks because it is better to know the certainty of pain than the uncertainty of the new. Love is both the most powerful motivation for growth and the most destructive force within a life - it all depends on the kind of love one has embraced. I will not write about this; Leave it to the songwriters of the world.

Authority figures, although they may be older and wiser than the young, are also capable of hurting and being hurt in return. Lord and Lady Capulet, although they love their daughter, force her to marry Paris, thinking it will ease the pain of Tybalt’s death. Lady Capulet explains to her daughter that they are marrying Juliet to Paris “To put thee from thy heaviness, hath sorted out a sudden day of joy that thou expects not, nor I looked not for” (III. iv, 114-115). It is well known that during Elizabethan times, wealthy parents spent hardly as much time with their children as parents do these days. Lord and Lady Capulet did not know Juliet’s true feelings on the matter of marriage, since, when asked earlier in the play by her mother, Juliet obediently replied with an answer that would be most likely to please her. Only the Nurse, who acted as the motherly figure in Juliet’s life, knew her lady’s true feelings, yet she had no say in the matter, and so was bound to keep Juliet’s secret. On the other hand are the Montagues: A rich, powerful family in the town of Verona, also hardened by years in the town spotlight and greed, are shown at one point to truly have feelings too. Lady Montague, similar to Lady Capulet, is never seen as a large part in her son’s life, except when it comes to important decisions. Lord Montague announces, after hearing of Romeo’s death, “my wife is dead tonight. Grief of my son’s exile hath stopped her breath” (V, iii, 218-219). Although she plays a small side role in keeping Romeo away from Juliet, here the reader feels sorry for her. It seems that Lady Montague really cares for her son and his life. It is evident that Romeo and Juliet’s toughened parents are also capable of being hurt somehow through love. In the play, we note s

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