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I need help writing an essay on the following topic: What point was Shakespeare trying to make with this story? I need it not to sound too...

In this text, it seems as though Shakespeare is trying to convey the idea that love is an incredibly powerful emotion that can overwhelm a person, just as hate or any other very passionate feeling can.  You could also argue that Shakespeare is trying to convey the idea that love and hate are equally powerful feelings that have the power to overwhelm and consume us.  

Immediately, the love at first sight experienced by Romeo and Juliet compels Juliet to say, "O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo? / Deny thy father and refuse thy name. / Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, / And I’ll no longer be a Capulet" (2.2.33-36).  She would ask that Romeo give up his family and his own identity in order to be with her, or, if he is unwilling to do so, she is willing to give up her own family and identity to be with him.  This love they feel inspires her to reject everything she knows, just to possess it.  And Romeo is likewise willing, saying, "I take thee at thy word. / Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptized. / Henceforth I never will be Romeo" (2.2.49-51).  In other words, he agrees that her love for him would give him a new identity and he would happily relinquish the old one -- all his family and friends -- in order just to be with her.  Their love pits them against family, against society; it is very intense and overwhelms everything else.  


This love is so consuming that it becomes the only thing that matters.  When Juliet expresses her fear that her kinsmen might find Romeo beneath her balcony and kill him, he says, "Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye / Than twenty of their swords. Look thou but sweet, / And I am proof against their enmity" (2.2.71-73).  He means that she has more power to wound him by withholding her love or failing to return his love for her than in the very real weapons her family would use against him.  He thinks that her love would be all the protection he needs.  It is sweet, certainly, but misguided.  Love is causing Romeo not to consider deeply their reality.  He continues, "My life were better ended by their hate / Than death proroguèd, wanting of thy love" (2.2.77-78).  He means that he would rather be put to death by her kinsmen now than to live a longer life without her love.  He now ranks Juliet's love as the most important thing about his existence; in fact, his existence isn't worth anything to him unless she loves him.


You could conclude by discussing the fact that Shakespeare doesn't seem to want to represent fairy tale love.  This is no sweetly romantic affair.  The love between Romeo and Juliet is so intense that it becomes catastrophic, prompting them to end their own lives rather than life without it.  It is intense and overwhelming and causes them and their families a great deal of pain.  Love in this play can be just as damaging and harmful as hate.

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