Tragedy of Haste: William Shakespeare\'s

¶ … tragedy of haste: William Shakespeare's play the Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet

The characterizations of William Shakespeare's play the Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet as a 'tragedy' may at first seem confusing to conventional definitions of dramatic tragedy. Is not a 'tragedy' by definition a play about the fall of a great person with a single, tragic flaw? However, this romance does have the characteristics of a tragedy, even though it does not depict the fortunes of a single individual. Instead, the two main protagonists of the play have the potential for greatness, or at least great love, but that potential is destroyed by their mutually shared tragic flaw of hastiness and impetuousness. Shakespeare implies that Romeo and Juliet learn this recklessness from the older generation, as embodied in the oldest parental figure of the play, Lord Capulet.

Even before he meets Juliet, Romeo is shown to be an impetuous character. He is pining away for Rosalind, a cold woman who has no interest in men and prefers to join a nunnery than marry. Romeo at the beginning of the play is in love with love. But his affections quickly switch, upon first sight, to Juliet. "Jesu Maria, what a deal of brine/Hath wash'd thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!" says Friar Lawrence, marveling at his lack of consistency (2.3). Romeo will soon propose to Juliet and elope with the daughter of his enemy without the thought of the potential consequences. He also has a hair-trigger temper, and when his friend Mercutio is killed in a duel with Juliet's beloved cousin Tybalt, Romeo slays Tybalt -- again without thought of the potential impact of this crime upon the life of his beloved Juliet. And his final, most reckless action is his decision to commit suicide, upon believing Juliet is dead, which leads indirectly to her death.

Juliet, in contrast to Romeo, has little interest in marriage and is timid when her parents suggest that she begin to think of prospective suitors. Of marriage, Juliet says before she meets Romeo: "It is an honour that I dream not of" (I.3). During her first encounter with Romeo, however, she at first grudgingly gives him a kiss, then willingly: "Then have my lips the sin that they have took" (I.5). Romeo overhears her talking about how much she loves him, and Juliet admits that she has thrown away all coyness: "But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true / Than those that have more cunning to be strange./I should have been more strange, I must confess,/but that thou overheard'st, ere I was ware,/My true love's passion" (II.2). Unlike Romeo, Juliet has premonitions that their love will not come to a happy end early on: "although I joy in thee, / I have no joy of this contract to-night: / it is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden; / Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be/Ere one can say 'It lightens'" (II.2). When she is about to drink the poison that will make her resemble a corpse, unlike Romeo's suicide, Juliet does not do so without thought of the seriousness of what might ensue. She fears that she may be tricked into drinking poison by Father Lawrence, or will go mad: "O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught, / Environed with all these hideous fears?" (IV.3). In a Romeo-like frenzy, Juliet finally resolves, having no apparent recourse (other than bigamy): "Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee" (IV.3).