Sunday, October 5, 2008
ARGH
There's so many points in R and J where I just grunt to myself and say, "why the hell are they doing this. its so illogical." Why is mercutio out to get into a fight? so that he can die and curse romeo and juliet and make the play a tragedy. Its like deus ex machina. The friar isn't very logical either, and follows the foolish train of thoughts of fourteen year olds. Juliet is threatened to be cast on the streets if she doesn't marry paris, and so instead she choses to run away to mantua with romeo via the potion fake death. Both options leave her disenfranchised to her family fortune, so why not just tell her parent's shes married to romeo. Why does the friar run away when he finds romeo dead and the noises of the guards scare him. Only so juliet can conveniently stab herself alone. When I first read this in high school in ninth grade I thought, "how touching". Now I read it and think, this is dumb, no one has to die. The Zeppereli version was on tv today and I found juliet's gestures and facial expressions amusing.
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3 comments:
Let me begin by saying I understand completely. I read this play for the first time when I was in ninth grade too, and I thought it was wonderful. In my feverishly romantic imagination, I thought it was so great that Romeo and Juliet were willing to die for their love. Now, however, there are so many times when Romeo and Juliet makes me want to scream. First of all, I don’t believe Romeo. He’s inconstant and insincere as far as I’m concerned. One minute he’s in love with Rosaline and then he sees Juliet. To me, it seemed like he just chose which girl was more attractive. Call me naïve, but I don’t think that’s the way love is supposed to work. The other thing that completely drives me crazy is something you mentioned: why don’t Romeo and Juliet just tell their parents about the marriage? It’s not as though their parents could do anything about it. Where Romeo and Juliet is concerned, I think it’s just best to take it at face value. They made stupid decisions, and they paid for them. Unfortunately, Bill doesn’t give us any other choice but to leave it at that.
I also agree with both of these points. I found myself particularly frustrated with the friar, because in my eyes he was someone sneaking around, trying not to get in trouble when he is supposed to be representing the church. I believe he could have seen that Romeo and Juliet would be in a fragile position and should have chosen not to marry them, talk to them about it or tell their parents that they are married. He is much more mature and should have a much more logical train of thought than these tiny fourteen year olds. I found it frustrating that he was trying to stay out of things when he was obviously so deeply involved! To comment on what Bailey said about Romeo being insincere, I completely agree. Personally, I have a wishy-washy outlook on love at first sight, and considering Romeo and Juliet are so darn young, I think they are mistaking infatuation and lust for love. How frustrating!
When I read this play in high school, I noticed (or maybe the teacher just told us as she rolled her eyes) that Romeo was quite fickle, but I also thought that our faith in his love should be redeemed by his willingness to die just to be near Juliet. Now I am completely frustrated not only with the infinite ways they could have achieved a more fortunate fate (as mentioned in previous comments) but also the consistent and detailed descriptions of their deaths that come BEFORE their deaths. Foreshadowing is one thing, a speech of warning in the beginning I can forgive... but then Romeo, Juliet, the friar and a few other characters each speak about how they could see this love leading to their own tragic deaths. Then even in the end Romeo comments on how Juliet doesn't look like she is dead. Once you know the ending, it is easy to be overly critical about things that may have only given you an inkling toward their demise the first time around, but this does seem ridiculous. Bill disappointed me with this one.
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