You are on page 1of 4

1Tran

Tung Tran

Ms. Giovannetti

English 1H; Period 1

Love at its Finest

Love is found in many forms. It is found in the bonds between families, friends, and humanity. It

is a driving force behind what inspires people to continue living, and helps motivate them to achieve a

certain goal. Many authors write about stories, all of which centers around love. Love is a universal theme

that acts as an important driving force behind many aspects of everyday life. Although it is a positive

emotion and drives humanity to always try to improve, love is also a double-bladed knife that could harm

those it affects through blind devotion and secrecy. Stories such as Romeo and Juliet, Pyramus and

Thisbe, and Duty help show that love is responsible of the many actions of a lovesick individual. Love

can make an individual act in erratic ways that could, in their perspective, benefit those they love,

although often, with little care for themselves.

Many types of love are found in Romeo and Juliet, but the most common is tragic love. One

minor character in Romeo and Juliet is Mercutio, friend of Romeo, who dies for Romeos honor. In Act 3,

Romeo and Mercutio exclaims, Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up. Come, sir, your passado! (Scene I

Line 79). Clearly, Romeo does not want to fight, so Mercutio duels Tybalt in his place because he does

not want Romeo to lose his honor. Mercutio is stabbed by Tybalt because he is willing to do anything for

his friend due to his love for him, although it, predictably ends in tragedy. Romeo and Juliet is not the

only piece of text to have tragedy that was brought on by love in it; Pyramus and Thisbe also contains this

type of tragic love. The story is about two lovers that can not meet each because of their parents, but when

they do meet, tragedy strikes. Many people believe that Shakespeare copied from the myth, which means
2Tran

that such tragic love is also present in it. One example could be found on line 149, when the author wrote,

She placed the daggers point beneath her breast, (Mandelbaum). Thisbe proceeds to stab herself,

because she does not want to live without Pyramus. She exemplifies tragic love because she shows that

sometimes people love each other enough, causing them to be willing to do anything to be with the other,

including in death. Sometimes, if a person loves an individual so much, they are willing to take any

measures for that person in order to make them happy or to be with them, even if it ends in tragedy.

Love is not always about tragedy, but there are certain aspects of it that could lead to tragic ends,

such as forbidden love, when given into. In Romeo and Juliet, the whole story revolves around a

forbidden love between two teens from two feuding families. Juliet, who starts to realize the impossibility

of an open love for them, says, Thou art thyself, though not a Montague, (Act 1 Scene II Line 97) when

she was at her balcony. Juliet is brooding about how she wishes Romeo was from any other family other

than the Montagues. This goes to show that Romeo and Juliet are in love with each other, but their

families are not allowing them to love each other; they, however, still meet in secret and even marries in

secret. This does not play out well, and ends up with the death of both teens, showing that forbidden love

could lead to tragedy. Regardless, Juliet is not the only girl in the Capulet family to love a Montague. In

Duty, it is revealed that Lady Capulet is in love with Lord Montague. At the end of the story, Lady

Capulet says, Him I loved. Him I did not marry, (Berkman 229), which tells the audience that although

she loves him, but she did not end up marrying Lord Montague. She is the opposite of Juliet because

although she has a forbidden love with Lord Montague, she sees more importance in her familial duties,

which includes marrying Lord Capulet, while Juliet ends up marrying Romeo. The continuation of her

appearance and success in raising Juliet goes to show that suppressing the forbidden feelings and taking a

traditional role can save an individual from certain fatal destinies. Love, especially forbidden love, when

acted upon, can make people do things that they do not usually, or are not supposed to, do, such as loving

an enemy and taking measures to be able to continue that love.


3Tran

Love, often, cannot appear in obvious manifestations, instead, more in secret, which leads it to be the

main cause rebellious behavior. For instance, in Act 1 of Romeo and Juliet, the two young lovers are both

obedient children to their own respective families; however, when they meet each other, they fall madly

in love. Since their families are feuding, they are forced to keep their love a secret. This is demonstrated

when Nurse said, Have you got to leave to go to shrift today? (Act 2 Scene V, Line 65). This is a form

of secrecy because Juliet told her parents that she is going to the church to confess, when in reality, she is

actually going to church to marry Romeo. Juliet shows signs of rebellion against her parents because of

her secret love interest, therefore supporting the fact that due to the concealed nature of some loves,

certain behaviors are born to able to maintain this love. Besides Romeo and Juliet, there are other pieces

of literature that contains the type of love that is the root of rebellious behavior. Secrets also appear in

Pyramus and Thisbe; the whole story is revolved around one secret: the lovers meeting. The author

description of how, In silence, [they] slip out from their homes and reach (Mandelbaum 46), supports

the central idea of the effects of hidden love. This behavior is of a secret nature because the two lovers are

planning to slip out of the house to meet up and marry, despite their parents forbidding them to. The

lovers marry anyways, which shows that that love can change a persons behavior, and in this instance,

giving them a tendency for more rebellious actions. Love is strong and can be very powerful at times,

powerful enough to alter a persons behavior to be able to keep secrets safe.

Works Cited
4Tran

Berkman, Pamela Rafael. Duty. California Collections. Ed. Kylene Beers, Martha Hougen, Carol

Jago, William McBride, Erik Palmer, and Lydia Stack. Orlando: Houghton Mifflin

Harcourt, 2017. 289-296 Print.

Naso, Publius Ovidius. Pyramus and Thisbe. California Collections. Ed. Kylene Beers, Martha

Hougen, Carol Jago, William McBride, Erik Palmer, and Lydia Stack. Orlando:

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017. 283-287 Print.

Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. California Collections. Ed. Kylene

Beers, Martha Hougen, Carol Jago, William McBride, Erik Palmer, and Lydia Stack.

Orlando: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017. 183-278 Print.

You might also like