Analysis of Romeo's Character
When young people are confronted with a variety of scenarios, they react in a variety of ways. They occasionally make sound choices that help them improve their lives. They can often become frustrated and make erroneous choices, which can have negative consequences.
Romeo's Obstinate Nature
Romeo is a major character in William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. Like many other young adults, he engages in behaviors that do not reflect sobriety, maturity, or commitment. This paper would concentrate on Romeo's critique, as well as his flaws and shortcomings in resolving problems that happen in his life. Romeo is a character that is obstinate. He is the type that is not receptive to the advice given to him. Benvolio tries to plead with him when he observes the misery he subjects himself to by spending all his time and effort in thinking about Rosaline. He tells him, "Be rul'd by me: forget to think of her," and in response to this, Romeo gives a stubborn answer, "O, teach me how I should forget to think." He implied that unless he were to be shown a mechanism for avoiding such thoughts, then it would be impossible to fail to think about her. It was rather stubborn of a young man who was being misled by his emotions. (Jonathan)
Immaturity and Romantic Pursuit
The level of immaturity that Romeo displays when he begins falling in love is saddening. He behaves like a man who is not sure of his purpose of pursuing love. (Hunter, Lynette, and Lichtenfels) Explain that he seems to be obsessed with the idea of being in love instead of having an interest in the woman herself. For this reason, he uses exaggerated poetic language in his speeches which characterize him as an inexperienced lover. Even though he seems to be improving by the time he meets Juliet, he is very fascinated by her beauty. When he meets her, he says, "Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night." This trait makes him look like a blind lover who is not bothered by any other characteristics of his woman as long as she is appealing to his eyes.
Lack of Rationality and Overemotional Nature
Romeo lacks rationality and tends to be overemotional. His emotions take the better part of his mind and thus hindering it to think soberly. The obsession he has for Rosaline is an indication of his inability to control his emotional life. Again, Friar Laurence scolds him for overemotional reaction shortly after his banishment. He refers to Romeo's tears as "womanish" and also tells him that his "wild acts denote The unreasonable fury of a beast." Everyone expects that a man should not behave like a woman who is soft-hearted and emotional or a beast which doesn't control its temper. (Jonathan)
Hasty Decisions and Indecisiveness
Making hasty decisions is one of the weaknesses of Romeo. He does not give himself time to do enough investigations before making important decisions. This indecisiveness is one of the reasons why Romeo finds himself in very complicated situations which often leads him to trouble. (Hunter, Lynette, and Lichtenfels) Argue that many of the problems we face begin with making hasty decisions. He kills Tybalt after he killed his friend Mercutio with the intention of avenging the death of his Mercutio. This murder leads to his banishment from the city. Romeo fails to comprehend Friar Lawrence's plan for Juliet's death. He quickly decides to kill himself without knowing that Juliet is not dead. Romeo develops a great determination to die just because he believes Juliet is not alive. Due to this quick resolution, he says, "Well Juliet, I will lie with thee tonight" and goes ahead to end his life. Juliet also kills herself upon learning that Romeo is dead. Romeo is also indecisive. He had declared his love for Rosaline, but unfortunately, he forgets it in one night after seeing Juliet. He describes Rosaline as "...too fair, too wise, wisely too fair." One would never imagine that Romeo would ever leave Rosaline for any other woman. He, however, falls in love with her immediately only after one day. The flair is disturbed by Romeo's indecisiveness when they approach him to marry them. He also fails to fight Tybalt since he is his cousin in law. Such indecisiveness makes his friend Mercutio engage in a fight with Tybalt and Mercutio ends up dying. If Romeo could probably have been firmer with the decisions he made, he wouldn't find himself in trouble. (Jonathan)
Romeo's stubbornness, immaturity, lack of rationality, indecisiveness, and hasty decisions put his life in trouble as well as that of other people. Rosaline, Mercutio, and Juliet were some of the characters who were affected adversely by the failures of Romeo.
Works Cited
Culpeper, Jonathan. "Keyness: Words, parts-of-speech and semantic categories in the character-talk of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet." International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 14.1 (2009): 29-59.
Hunter, Lynette, and Peter Lichtenfels. Negotiating Shakespeare's language in Romeo and Juliet: reading strategies from criticism, editing and the theatre. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2009.
Shakespeare, William. romeo and juliet. Cambridge University Press, 2003.
