Romeo And Juliet Play By Shakespeare English Literature Essay

Romeo and Juliet play is based on the Shakespeare story of Romeo and Juliet the two young lovers who died for each other in 1594.The setting of the play is in Verona where the two families of the lovers have not been in good terms for a while. The two lovers take their lives and this takes away the strife and anger between their families. Sampson and Gregory are Capulet workers who claim that they will not accommodate insults from Montague family. Abram and Balthasar are Montague employees show up and the four starts to argue. Benvolio Montague’s nephew shows up and tries to stop the quarrel Tybalt Capulet’s nephew picks a fight with him.

Romeo attends a party at Lord Capulate’s house where he’s kept in charge of reading the guest list. He meets Juliet and falls in love with her and so does she though she should be marrying Paris who is prince of Verona kinsman. The two are secretly married by Friar Laurence in his cell. Tybalt kills Mercutio and flees but Romeo finds him and kills him which leads to his banishment. Juliet visits Friar who gives her some distilled liquor to keep her dead for 42 hours so that she can miss her wedding with Paris and Romeo would pick her from the Capulate tomb and take her to Mantua. She does exactly that but their plan fails because Friar does not send the letter to Romeo on time telling him of the plan about Juliet’s fake death. Romeo takes the poison which he had bought illegally from a poor Apothecary who needed the money. When Juliet wakes up and finds Romeo dead by her side, she takes his dagger and kills herself too.

This assignment will include analysis of the Romeo and Juliet play, comparison and contrast of this play with the play Twelfth Night or What you will by the same writer William Shakespeare. Twelfth night play is a play about a young Duke Orsino who falls in love for a long time with the beautiful Olivia but she does not feel the same way because her brother has passed away. Viola comes to Illyia after her brother Sebastian drowns and tries to copy Olivia’s life style by disguising herself as a man and changing her name to Cesario. She starts working for the Duke who favors her over the other employees and asks her to pursue Olivia on his behalf. Cesario finds out that “he” has fallen for the Duke. “He” finds out that Olivia has fallen for “him” and it gets complicated because “he” is a woman and Duke loves her. Sebastian had been rescued by his best friend Antonio and they set to go to Illyia though Antonio has enough enemies there.

Andrew, Toby and Maria set up Malvorio with Olivia by writing him a letter supposedly from Olivia telling him that she loves him and requests him to dress and behave in a way that will annoy her. The plan works out and Malvorio is put in jail. Sebastian is given money by Antonio whom he later claims from Cesario who has no idea who he is leading to his arrest. Andrew and Toby beat up Sebastian thinking he was but Olivia rescues him where he falls madly in love with her and promises to marry her. They marry in secret but later she gets mad at Cesario for breaking the marriage promise made by Sebastian. Cesario admits her love for Orsino and everyone is shocked to discover that Cesario and Sebastian are identical twins. The Duke agrees to marry viola who admits being a woman and Olivia agrees to marry Sebastian

Analysis of Romeo and Juliet Play

Romeo and Juliet play can be classified as a tragedy. This is because the story ends sadly with the fall of the tragic hero (protagonist) who in this case is Romeo. This can be supported by the fact that Romeo had a descent birth, made poor decisions frequently and passed through a lot of suffering. Romeo who is the tragic hero in the play possesses the quality of noble birth which is characteristic of tragic hero’s. He is born in the Montague family which is famous and highly respected in the city of Verona. Benvolio in Act 1, Scene 1,Line 141 talks of his noble uncle who is Romeo’s father. He also comes from a very rich family which earns him a lot of respect as seen in Act 1, Scene 5, Lines 65-66 where Lord Capulate says that “Verona boasts of him and bears him as a partly gentleman”. This implies that even his enemies acknowledge the respect given to him by the citizens. Romeo has a tragic flaw which is falling in love so fast and intensely with Rosaline and Juliet which leads him to his grave. Goddard (p. 40) says that looking for a tragic flaw in Romeo or Juliet is imprudent and pointless. In Act 2, Scene 2, lines 117-118 Juliet tells Romeo that it is too callous, too undivided and too abrupt.

He has also made several poor decisions like attending Capulet’s party where he ends up meeting Juliet. In Act 1, Scene 4, line 113 he tells Mercutio to direct his glide so that they can head for the party. If Romeo did not interfere with the fight between Mercutio and Tybalt, they both could not have died and he wouldn’t have been banished from Verona which kept him away from Juliet. This is illustrated in Act 3, Scene 1,line 1290 where he tells Tybalt that either of them or both must join Mercutio in his grave. His last and stupid decision was when he chose to take the poison as shown in Act 5, Scene 3, line 120 where he lastly says that the Apothecary drugs are fast and with a kiss he dies. If he could have waited just for a while, he would have seen Juliet alive and they both would not have died. Because of him, Juliet disagrees with her father, drinks the distilled liquor and eventually stabs herself to death with his dagger .Romeos poor decisions and tragic flaw causes more harm to others than himself. The moral lesson for this play is that people should take their time before they can hate, love and make important decisions in life.

Comparison between twelfth night play and Romeo and Juliet play

The two plays Romeo and Juliet and The Twelfth night are both based on love stories by William Shakespeare. In both cases, the play protagonists are young men who fall in and out of love with two beautiful women. As portrayed by Ford (p.172), they are sick lings of love. At the beginning of the play, Romeo is madly in love with Rosaline but at the end falls for Juliet just like Orsino is with Olivia but ends up falling for Viola and marries her. In both cases, the two gentlemen are also very rich and make their decisions poorly. In the case of Romeo, he made poor decisions by accepting to attend the Capulet party, trying to stop the fight between Tybalt and Mercutio which led to their deaths and his banishment and taking the poison when he finds Juliet “dead”. Orsino on the other hand, he tells Cesario to woo Olivia on his behalf which led to her falling for Cesario who is a woman. He also decides to marry Viola who had acted as a man all along and even asked him to woo Olivia. In both cases, the two men do not end up with the women they love. Romeo ends up killing himself because Juliet is “dead” while Orsino ends up marrying Cesario after being in love with Olivia for a long time.

The heroin’s of the plays are portrayed as independent, strong and beautiful women who take their time to make decisions, know what they want and go for it. Juliet is supposed to marry Paris who is a prince but when she sees Romeo, she falls in love with him and plans to elope with him. Olivia on the other hand falls in love with Cesario and even gives him her ring. They are also women from very rich and influential background. This is seen in (p. 88) where Orsino tells Cesorio to tell Olivia that “my love is more noble than the world” and he’s not interested in her riches but her.

The scenes of setting of the plays are also similar in the sense that the main characters are both from rich backgrounds and have people at their service who are less rich.

Contrast between Romeo and Juliet play, and twelfth night play

Romeo and Juliet play can be categorized as a tragic story because of its sad ending of the two lovers deaths while twelfth night play is categorized as a romantic comedy because it ends with marriage celebrations. Orsino who is the protagonist of the twelfth night, he seems to be only infatuated with Olivia because he ends up marrying Viola who he had thought was a man unlike Romeo who has true love for Juliet and even dies for her as shown by Illouz (p. 153). The heroins also are different in their way of loving. Juliet decides to take her life when she finds out that Romeo is dead but Olivia decides to marry Cesario’s twin Sebastian when she finds out that Cesario is a woman.

The moral lessons of the two plays are also different. The moral lesson of Romeo and Juliet play is that people should take their time and think carefully before they can make important decisions while the twelfth night play educates people on love according to Wendler and Tanya (P. 34) who says that if we accept the plays theme to be education on love, and the romantic lover then idea of As you like it is repeated.

Conclusion

This assignment was meant to analysis the William Shakespeare play of Romeo and Juliet, compare and contrast it with the Twelfth night play by the same writer but reviewed by Ratri Ray. The play Romeo and Juliet is a tragic love story of two young lovers who kill themselves for each other while the Twelfth night play is a romantic comedy with unhappy ending of wedding bells. The moral lesson of Romeo and Juliet play is that people should take their time while making important decisions while Twelfth Night play educates on love and romance. The main similarities between the two plays were, poor decision making by the protagonists of the play as well their rich backgrounds. The heroines are also demonstrated as independent, rich, bold, intelligent and good decision makers. Love forms the themes and basis of the two plays .They were different in their moral lessons and also the intensity of love. Juliet kills her self when she finds out that Romeo is dead but Olivia marries Sebastian after realizing that Cesario whom she was in love with was a woman. Orsino also marries Viola though he claimed to have loved Olivia for long.