Romeo and Juliet to the Entire Play

¶ … Romeo and Juliet to the entire play

The play Romeo and Juliet written by William Shakespeare is an engaging play on love and the circles of love relationships mainly between two central characters who also form the title of the play, Romeo and the lover known as Juliet. The play portrays the perspective about the strife and feud that is experienced between the two families, Capulet and Montague families. The same feud or tension is seen in the love life of these two characters and all along within the play, the writer prepares the reader or viewer for the ultimate suicide that happens in the last scene, the Scene 3 of Act 5.

This last scene hence stands out as the most significant scene in the play Rome and Juliet to consolidate everything that had hitherto happened in the play. The scene depicts Paris visiting the graveyard accompanied by a page or servant carrying a torch, then after telling the page to move far off, he scatters flowers on the grave of Juliet. Before he finishes, the page whistles as a sign that someone was coming, upon which Paris runs to hide. Apparently it is Romeo who appears carrying a crowbar and mattock accompanied by Balthasar. Romeo confides in Balthasar that he had come to open up the tomb of Capulet since there was an expensive ring that he had to take from the dead body, this could have been a cover up so that Balthasar does not discover his intention to commit suicide. Rome tells Balthasar to leave and hands him a letter that was to be delivered to Montague the following morning. Balthasar agrees to go but instead hides in the nearby bushes to see what Romeo was up to. In the process, Paris recognizes Romeo as the individual who had killed Tybalt and by implication the man responsible for the death of Juliet. He cannot bear Romeo dishonoring the dead Tybalt or Juliet hence jumps out and confronts him, a fight breaks out between the two. The page who was still in the hiding runs off to call witnesses and Romeo kills Paris, before his death, Paris requests to be laid next to Juliet in the tomb, Romeo does that.

The scene then proceeds to depict Romeo going into the tomb carrying Paris, he finds Juliet lying peacefully and even in death Romeo still finds he beautiful. Romeo picks up the poison that Juliet had taken and drinks and kisses Juliet then drinks again and dies. Just shortly then Friar Lawrence comes to the churchyard and finds Balthasar who was still hiding, he tells Friar that Romeo was in the tomb and that he had a dream that Romeo fought and killed a person. Friar enters the tomb and finds Romeo and Paris dead, but in a twist of events Juliet wakes up. The poison had not killed her but made her unconscious. She asks for Romeo and Friar informs her that they were both dead and that they needed to leave as some people were approaching. Juliet refuses to leave with him and instead, as Friar leaves, she tries to kiss the lips of Romeo so that she could die by the same poison that Romeo took. This does not work out and as the footsteps approach, Juliet takes Romeo's dagger, stabs herself, slumps over Romeo and dies.

Chaos ensues at the churchyard, the page has brought in witnesses, Friar and Balthasar are apprehended as they are found around and suspected of killing the three. However, Friar narrates of the secret marriage that had been between Romeo and Juliet and the consequent deaths. They leave the place sad, declaring that there has never been a sadder event that that in the region (Shakespeare Navigator, 2015).

This scene summarizes the entire play, love cannot be stifled and many even in the current society would kill and even sacrifice self for love, despite it being illicit or not. It is however important to note that suicide connotations persist throughout the play and this is actualized in this last scene. The good and the evil coexist, at times so closely that it is hard to tell them apart as was depicted in this last scene. The kiss is meant to show love to Romeo, but again it was intended for a violent end through poisoning to death, when this failed, Juliet indicates that she was going then to die from a happy dagger, of which she did. The close coexistence between good and evil throughout the play and even in the society is explicitly explained in this scene, making it the most important scene in the play (Glorioso K., 2015).