Language and personality in Romeo and Juliet: a comparative analysis

Romeo and Juliet

William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is considered the epitome of romantic text. When someone talks about doomed love or true love, they always go back to Romeo and his paramour. So much is made of the love story between the two, that the tragedy of the events has come to be misinterpreted as adding to the romance. With this misunderstanding has become this notion that Romeo and Juliet are interchangeable characters, their gender and their name being the only thing that divides the two as individuals. This is entirely untrue. When you do a close reading of the play and at the actual words Shakespeare uses, it becomes evident that Romeo and Juliet are indeed very different people. Romeo is controlled by his impulses, whether they are to fight or to love or to die. Juliet, on the other hand is more methodical and though she ultimately makes her decisions based on the will of her heart, she at least takes the time to reflect on their consequences.

When the audience first meets Romeo Montague, he is beside himself with love for a woman named Rosalind. His first scene, he is lamenting piteously that the woman he loves does not love him and so he feels unlike himself. "Tut, I have lost myself; I am not here; / This is not Romeo, he's some other where" (I.i.190-191). It is as though without a woman to love, Romeo has no identity. Romeo only agrees to go to the party held by the Capulets in order that he might see his Rosalind again. At this point, Rosalind is the only woman he could ever imagine loving. He claims, "The all-seeing sun / Ne'er saw her match since first the world begun" (I.ii.89-90). Romeo is besotted with this love only until he sees the young Juliet.

It is important to remember that Juliet is indeed very young. She is only fourteen years old when the story takes place. Yet she is being prepared by her parents for an advantageous marriage. That is to say, a union that will be advantageous from a financial standpoint and advantageous in creating a successful alliance for her family. Being a daughter of wealth, Juliet has been prepared for this role her entire life. It was her destiny from birth and she has no romantic notions to contradict what is expected of her. When asked by her mother about her feelings towards marriage, Juliet responds, "It is an honor that I dream not of" (I.iii.66). She is told that she will marry Paris and asked if she could love him, but she knows that this will not matter in determining the union. "I'll look to like, if looking liking move: / But no more deep will I endart my eye / Than your consent gives strength to make it fly" (97-99). Still, Juliet is but fourteen and subject to the same hormonal imbalances as modern teens.

Romeo forgets his beloved Rosalind the moment his eyes set on Juliet. He famously says, "Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! / For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night" (I.v.50-51). Juliet feels equally enamored when she sees Romeo and from this point on, their feelings toward each other are evenly passionate. Yet Juliet is purely in love and we had her earlier attitude to compare it with. Until she met Romeo, she had no fantasies about love or romance and thus her affection is undeniably sincere. When you look at how quickly Romeo went from worshipping Rosalind to kissing Juliet as a pilgrim's prayer, one cannot help but question if his love is as sincere as the young Capulet's.

Later that evening in the famous balcony scene, Romeo kneels in the garden pining for Juliet at a distance, proclaiming all her wonders and all her perfections. Contrast this with Juliet whose thoughts are far more prosaic. She says, "Tis but they name that is my enemy; / Thou art thyself, though not a Montague" (II.ii.38-39). Though she feels equal passion, she is not concentrating on how Romeo looks, but rather on the very real dangers their emotions will lead them to. Romeo is completely lost in his fantasy and Juliet has at least one foot in the realm of reality. The perfect example of their divergent personalities follows Juliet's inquiry of how Romeo arrived in her garden. He responds that, "With love's light wings did I o'er-perch these walls, / For stony limits cannot hold love out" (II.ii.66-67). Compare this to Juliet's statement that "If they do see thee, they will murder thee" (70). Even in her proclamations of love, Juliet is direct and straightforward without the flowery words her lover utilizes. Whereas he compares her to all the flowers and all the beauties of the night, she states plainly that she doesn't know how to play the coy games of women or protest to neutrality when she loves.