Exactly why is Romeo and Juliet Not really a Love Story, but a Tragedy?

Though it is common for modern culture to romanticize the feelings of the play’s protagonists, such an approach creates another meaning that opposes the author’s message. Appropriately, to the play, all of the dialogues between Romeo and Juliet are filled with numerous religious phrases, such as comparing the girl’s hands with a “holy shrine” and numerous repetitions of the term “saints, holy palmers” (Act 2 Scene 2). Such communication had not been common for the youth of that time, and Shakespeare uses it to show how addictive and self-destruction love can be if people address it like a religion. Afterward, this attitude toward their love forces characters to abandon their former lives, betray friends, and dive in to the continuous web of intrigues and crimes, which is more typical in the tragedy genre.

More over, it is impossible to neglect the tragic ending of the play when speaing frankly about its true meaning. Mcdougal does not demonstrate a commitment to eternal love but rather a compulsive and irrational act that could have now been prevented if Romeo and Juliet were less blinded by their feelings. Furthermore, the theme of death in the name of love is visible throughout most of the acts of the play as the symbol of a strong but self-destructive love. For that reason at the culmination of the play, it appears that love brought the couple merely sorrow and struggles in the place of happiness.

Inspite of the powerful feeling that can make people create wonderful things and change themselves for the better, blind love can occasionally become the central source of pain and sadness. The precise portrayal of these facts makes Romeo and Juliet a real tragedy rather than a love story.

Works Cited

Shakespeare, W., & Fischlin, D. (2013). The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Don Mills, ON: OUP Canada.