Themes and Motifs
Themes
Fate
- Romeo and Juliet‘s fate is pre-designed from the very beginning of the play (prologue: the lovers‘ relationship is deathmarked)
- both the protagonists are not responsible for their deaths, but are mere victims of fate and its force
- Act I, Scene 2: servant finds Romeo and Benvolio completely by chance, accidentally inviting them to the feast where Romeo meets Juliet
if it weren‘t for that incident, the tragedy would not have happened
- Romeo foresees his fate when Mercutio dies, claiming that his friend‘s death is just the beginning of a series of tragic events
- the messenger that was sent to Romeo by Friar Lawrence in order to explain the plan by which Juliet would only pretend her death does not arrive in time and Romeo does not get the message, thus believing that Juliet is truly dead and therefore he kills himself
- Juliet awakes from her poison-induced sleep just moments after Romeo‘s suicide - had he come just a few minutes later, both of them would not have committed suicide
- however, their deaths have served a greater cause in that the rivaling families are united in their grief and peace is restored in the town of Verona
Love
- Romeo and Juliet is the most famous English love story
- play focuses on the love between Romeo and Juliet
- here, love is aggressive, ecstatic and overwhelming and a force that represses loyalties and emotions in general
- love defies family: both Juliet and Romeo are ready to give up their family names in order to be able to be together
- love defies friends: Romeo refuses to listen to his friends, heads to Juliet‘s house despite their objections
- love defies politics: Romeo returns to Verona despite his banishment in order to be with Juliet
- death as expression of love
- love is portrayed as such a powerful passion that if it cannot be attained, only suicide is considered a suitable reaction
- both Romeo and Juliet consider suicide when they fear that their partner might not be able to live with them anymore
- Romeo threatens to stab himself when he hears of his banishment; Juliet threatens to stab herself when she is forced to marry Paris
- theme concludes in double suicide which is the most powerful expression of love Romeo and Juliet can make
Motifs
Light and Darkness
- Juliet is compared with light by Romeo throughout the play
- she is a sun that can kill the envious moon (Act II, Scene 2)
- she has eyes that are like stars in heaven
- she glistens like a jewel in the night
- Juliet says that if she dies she wants Romeo to be cut in little stars that will shine in heaven (Act III, Scene 2)
- light also finally separates them from each other: when their wedding night ends, Romeo has to leave and he will actually never see Juliet again
- darkness is associated with mystery, passion and emotion: it is dark when they first meet each other, it is night when they swear their love to each other, and their wedding night is also celebrated in the dark - even their suicides take place in the dark
- night as a private space where the protagonists can show their truest self
Poison
- Friar Lawrence already mentions in Act 2, Scene 2 that every herb or plant can have good or bad properties and that it is the humans who turn poison into something lethal
- poison (sleep-inducing and lethal) is the tool of Romeo and Juliet‘s death
- although Juliet actually stabbed herself, it was the poison she drank that led her to committing suicide
- feud between Montague and Capulet families is poisonous - deadly - as well
- Mercutio dies due to the rivalries
- the feud finally leads to the double suicide of Romeo and Juliet
- money is also considered poisonous
- Romeo pays the poison from the apothecary in gold
- if the apothecary were richer and wouldn‘t need Romeo‘s money so desperately, he wouldn‘t have sold the poison
- thus, money poisons the apothecary into making an immoral and illegal choice