R+J Literary Essay

In the story Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare, main characters Romeo and Juliet, whose families are fighting, fall in love, which eventually leads to their tragic end. Themes like love and death are vital to the story, but another theme—time, such as events being rushed or unlucky timing—subtly plays an important role. Throughout the story, Shakespeare uses the theme of time to show and create the different aspects and stages of Romeo and Juliet’s relationship. In the beginning, there is a sense of urgency and uneasiness toward their future together when Romeo marries Juliet right after they meet. Later, there is a scene contrasting nighttime and morning that shows the bond between Romeo and Juliet. Lastly, a sequence of bad timing  was responsible for the end of their relationship and their unfortunate deaths.

Romeo and Juliet’s relationship feels rushed. Both characters are blinded by love and prone to something bad happening. One day after meeting at a party, Romeo and Juliet secretly marry without much thought of the future problems it could create. Marriages usually happen well after a couple meets, because a long period of time is needed to make a good plan for the future and Romeo and Juliet skipped over that period. They come from two families that are feuding, and marriage could make the conflict worse. Additionally, they break rules for marriage at the time by marrying in the afternoon, not getting a license, and not getting approval from the parents. This shows that their relationship is especially extreme because they are too madly in love to think about what will happen to them in the long term. Because of the Romeo and Juliet’s rash decision to marry, the priest, Friar Laurence, could see that their syrupy love could end badly. He warned Romeo that his hurried, passionate love could spin out of control. “These violent delights have violent ends,” ( 2.6.9) he says. “The sweetest honey/is loathsome in his own deliciousness” (2.6.11-12). The violent delights he mentions reflect the mad love of Romeo and Juliet; he is saying that kind of relationship won’t end well. He compares their strong love to the sweetest honey: although it feels really good, the way sweet honey tastes good, the surge of it has a bad result, just as eating too much honey can make you feel sick. “Therefore love moderately,” he says. “Long love doth so;/Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow” (2.6.14-15). Friar Laurence thinks they need to slow their love down to ensure a better future.

Shakespeare shows how close Romeo and Juliet’s relationship is with a scene about daytime and nighttime. After being exiled from Verona, where they live, Romeo stays one last night with Juliet before his departure. Juliet has a hard time separating from Romeo the next morning and tries to extend the final time they have together. “Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day/It was the nightingale, and not the lark” (3.5.1-2). To persuade Romeo to stay, she tries to assure him it is still nighttime. The nightingale is a bird that comes out at night, while the lark comes out in the morning, so she reckons if the nightingale is chirping, there is more time for them to be together. But Romeo responds by saying the bird is indeed a lark, and the streaks of light coming from the window indicate it is morning. He knows their time together must end because if he stays, he will die. Then she says, “Yond light is not daylight; I know it, I/It is some meteor that the sun exhales” (3.5.12-13). She tells Romeo that the light he sees outside is just a meteor, not the sun rising in the morning. This shows how badly Juliet wants Romeo to stay, because she desperately comes up with reasons she knows aren’t true to convince him. Whether the bird is a lark or not, it is still ultimately morning, and the light from the window actually is from the rising sun. In addition, Romeo’s response also shows how much he wants to stay with her. “I’ll say yon gray is not the morning’s eye,” he says (3.5.19), “Nor that is not the lark whose notes do beat” (3.5.21). Romeo also knows it is morning, but just to stay with Juliet longer, he agrees with her claims. He accepts that it’s not the lark that’s singing or the sun that’s shining. The personal risk he takes by staying just to be with Juliet shows how much they love each other.

The end of Romeo and Juliet’s relationship was a result bad timing ruining a plan by Friar Laurence. After Romeo was exiled from Verona, Juliet was forced to marry another man against her will. Friar Laurence suggested that Juliet fake her death and rejoin Romeo after being placed in her family vault for its dead. Friar Laurence sent Romeo a letter telling him of the plan, and Juliet drank a poison that would make her seem dead for two days. *But Romeo’s serving man, Balthasar, happened to be in the graveyard where Juliet was brought. Believing that she was dead, Balthasar took a horse and rushed to Romeo to inform him of the news. “Her body sleeps in Capel’s monument/And her immortal part with angels lives,” he says (5.1.18-19). But unfortunately, Balthasar reached Romeo before the carrier of the Friar’s letter to inform him of the plan, so Romeo believed Juliet was actually dead. Upon hearing this, Romeo rushes to the monument where Juliet was still in her dormant sleep. But right before Juliet awakens, Romeo takes his own life, not being able to bear his loss. “Here’s to my love!” he says. “Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die” (5.3.119-120). Right after that, Juliet wakes up to see Romeo dead, and takes her own life. “Oh happy dagger!/This is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die” (5.3.169-171). The events that led to this were a result of people unluckily arriving too early. Because Balthasar reached Romeo before the Friar’s messenger, and Romeo saw Juliet just before she woke up, their relationship ended in their tragic deaths.

Shakespeare foreshadowed the unsteady future of Romeo and Juliet in their rushed wedding. He included a scene about night and day that showed how close they were. And he ended their relationship by adding a two components of bad timing. All of these aspects of their relationship are expressed through the theme of time. Just like in the real world, time is something that can’t be controlled; sometimes there is too much and sometimes there is too little. It can often change things in our lives, make us do something questionable, or make us want more of it, as it did in Romeo and Juliet. Time is only one of the smaller themes in the story that can be elaborated upon and written about. There are so many others, like the ones written of in class, that make the story so good.

*Some events stated are based on the movie Romeo and Juliet directed by Franco Zeffirelli.