Romeo and Juliet Analysis

Romeo and Juliet Analysis

The topic I chose for my analysis is death and death's premonitions. In Shakespeare's play, Romeo and Juliet, there were many deaths that took place. The first death that took place was Mercutio's death. Tybalt was furious because Romeo showed up to the Capulet's house party. Tybalt tried to kill Romeo, but Romeo did not want to fight back because he was married to Juliet. Mercutio couldn't stand the fact that Tybalt was beating Romeo to death, so he stepped in trying to keep peace between the two boys. Mercutio's blood drips onto Romeo's hand as he falls under Tybalt's sword. After Mercutio's death, Romeo wanted to take avenge for his best friend. He killed Tybalt and was then exiled from Verona. All of these events lead to Romeo and Juliet's death also. When Romeo saw Juliet laying on her deathbed, he killed himself because he wanted to join her. When Juliet woke up from her temporary death, she saw her love laying besides her, dead. In result of that, she also kills herself. You could see how one death affected so many people's lives after that.

The handful of deaths were foretold by the characters at one point. When Mercutio invited Romeo to the Capulet's party, he knew it wasn't an articulate choice. Romeo had a nightmare that there would be two untimely deaths that would happen and his instinct was to not go to the party. When Mercutio died in Romeo's arm, he shouted out, ''A plague on both your houses...", which kind of was a foreshadow to Romeo and Juliet's death. After Mercutio's death, Romeo avenged him and took Tybalt's life. He then left to Mantua because he was banned from Verona. Another premonition of death was when Juliet had a vision of herself and Romeo in a church after Romeo left her to go to Mantua. She also saw them at the bottom of the tomb.

The premonitions are very significant to the play. When Romeo had a sign that he shouldn't have gone to the Capulet's party, he should have stuck to it. In the result of going against his instincts, he basically set himself up for disaster. Romeo could have easily avoided everything if he made a bigger deal out of his nightmare. Also, when Juliet had a vision of Romeo and herself lying together at the bottom of the tomb, it was clearly a big hint. Throughout the whole play, there were so many hints and clues that if they followed that path, it would only lead to tragedy. Yet, they chose to ignore those signs. For if they followed through with the strong clues, they wouldn't have been a tragic love story.