HUM 22505/20/04The title Romeo and Juliet evokes a story of love. In fact, it is a story about the nature of human impulse- bare, fickle, and indomitable.
Through a sequence of events, Shakespeare strips his characters to their bones and blood, where love and hate condense into a single force. By the end of the play, the author proves it is this force which gives purpose to life and at the same time consumes it. The play begins with an introduction to the quarrel between Montagues and Capulets, although the reason for it is never mentioned. This is because reason has no partaking in human impulse. Deprived of common sense, natures thrust pesters Sampson and Gregory, the serving men of the Capulets, and wont leave them satisfied until theyd let it outburst.
It is this force which kills rationality and turns men to beasts as the Prince perceives it:What, ho! You men, you beasts,That quench the fire of your pernicious rage With purple fountains issuing from your veins! Benvolio and Mercutio are two other characters compelled by rancor. At one point in the play they even accuse one other of being cantankerous: Thou! Why, thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more or a hair less in his beard than thou hast. . . and yet thou will tutor me from quarreling! This shows the idleness of their wits and the complete submission to impulse. The same blind thrust is nested in Tybalds character which throughout the play is driven by hate: What, drawn, and talk of peace? I hate the world as I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee.
From the beginning, the author constructs a juxtaposition between Tybald and Romeo as two distinct men, one possessed by hate the other by love, yet both equally impassioned and impetuous. Tybald tenaciously builds his purpose around animosity. His imprudence is proven once again at the ball, when hes ready to make a mutiny for the sole purpose of indulging his impulse:Patience performance with willful choler meeting Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting. I will withdraw; but this intrusion shall, Now seeming sweet, convert to bittrest gall. Romeo, seemingly opposite to Tybald in intention, is in fact his twin in initiative. This is because he lives for love, but his love is just as blind as Tybalds hate and just as intrinsic.
At the beginning of the play, Romeo pines for Rosaline with force and vigor more resolute than reason itself:When the devout religion of mine eyeMaintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires;And there, who, often drowned, could never die,Transparent heretics, be burned for liars!One fairer than my love? The all-seeing sunNeer saw her match since first the world began. Yet it doesnt take long before his love transfigures with the same virility into the eyes of another woman:The fair for which love groaned for and would die,With tender Juliet matched is now not fair. Here Shakspeare uses the words: which love groaned for instead Romeo groaned to connote that love or nature is the subject who does the action and not the man. This shows that the only constant is not the object of affection, but the impulse of the beholder. The Friar often takes the voice of reason in the play. As such, he perceives Romeos impudence and his synthetic love: For doting, not for loving, pupil mine and Young mens love then lies not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.
On many occasions, Romeo is ready to take his own life, under the rashness of an impulse. For example, as soon as he learns that hes banished he offers to stab himself. Once again, the Frier attempts to direct logic in his mind:Thy noble shape is but a form of wax,Digressing from the valor of a man;Thy dear love sworn but hallow perjury,Killing that love which thou hast vowed to cherish. Throughout the play, Shakespeare infers the ambivalence of nature: brawling love, loving hate, bright smoke, cold fire, and virtue itself turns vice. At the same time, the author follows the impetus in the affections and warm youthful blood of his characters. This human impulse manifests as love or hate and being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.
Thus it becomes the sole purpose of existence for Romeo, Tybald, Benvolio and Mercutio. Even though Shakespeare foreshadows the threat of that impulse, full soon the canker death eats up the plant, none of his characters are able to resist the fickle force of nature which sways their actions. At the end, Romeo, Tybald, and Benvolio find peace only in absence of impulse, where reason does not prevail and love and hate, both begot by the same virulent force confide their victims to one end- death.
