Thematic Analysis: Romeo and Juliet (3EU 2024) by Jaena Dianne Sim Giak Eng Staff

Theme 1: Love and Hate

jaenasim — 2024-03-01 09:42:41 UTC

Love is portrayed as a complex emotion, capable of bringing both joy and deep despair. Shakespeare presents love in many different forms – such as romantic, platonic, familial, and destructive love. What ideas of love are portrayed in each of these quotes?

Theme 3: Reason and Passion

jaenasim — 2024-03-01 09:42:41 UTC

Shakespeare presents two types of characters: 1) those who act on logic and intellect, and 2) those who act on impulse and emotion. How do these quotes illustrate reason or passion? (Could it be both?).

Theme 2: Fate and Free Will

jaenasim — 2024-03-01 09:42:42 UTC

Living by fate means that fate controls our lives. To exercise free will means that man makes his own choices and bears responsibility for those choices. How does Shakespeare present the conflict between fate and characters' free will in these quotes?

Theme 4: Age/Youth and Maturity

jaenasim — 2024-03-01 09:42:42 UTC

Shakespeare explores how the old and young perceive each other. In particular, being old/young may not correspond to one's maturity or rationality. What do these quotes reflect about the young or old? (Are these still relevant today?)

Theme 5: Life and Death

jaenasim — 2024-03-01 09:42:42 UTC

Shakespeare uses nature as a motif to convey the concepts of life and death. Explore the motif of nature in these quotes. What natural images does Shakespeare use to convey life/death in this play? How is life and death portrayed?

(Romeo, 1.1.175-81)

jaenasim — 2024-03-02 09:54:20 UTC

Tricia Leong, David, Sen Heng:

It reveals that love and hate are intertwined. The juxtaposition between love and hate, being complete opposites with each other yet still being two sides of the same paper. Furthermore this quote is expressing the idea that Romeo is innocent in terms of love and relationships, he speaks that love is anything but happiness, it is the ‘feather of lead’ the ‘bright smoke’ and even the ‘cold fire’.

(Romeo, 1.2.92-93)

jaenasim — 2024-03-02 09:57:52 UTC

Max, Xirui:
This quote suggests about love at first sight. It shows Romeo’s intense infatuation for Juliet comparing her with the sun saying that she is more beautiful. He also greatly admires her as although this is the first time he saw her, he already has such strong feelings for her. Therefore, we can see that Romeo has showed intense interest for juliet at first sight proving their love at first sight moment.

(Nurse, 1.3.23-27)

jaenasim — 2024-03-02 10:02:53 UTC

Xandra, Jade: This quote reveals the idea of familial love between the nurse and juliet. It shows the nurse’s care towards juliet. The earthquake suggests the hatred and conflict

(Lady C, 1.3.82-88)

jaenasim — 2024-03-02 10:09:26 UTC

Megan, Joelle:
This quote reveals the idea of physical attraction. Lady Capulet suggests that the desirability of Paris’ appearance is more important than a proper connection between him and Juliet as she tries to persuade Juliet into the marriage by describing his facial features, such as the “volume of young Paris’ face” and that delight is “writ there with beauty’s pen” instead of telling Juliet about his personality and other aspects.

(Mercutio, 1.4.23-24, 28-29)

jaenasim — 2024-03-02 10:10:26 UTC

Yi Yin, Iffah:
These quotes reveal that Mercutio thinks that for you to love, you must be upright and not fail to be a good partner. This is supported by “ And to sink in it, should you burthen with love—-”, meaning that in a relationship, if one sinks which is failing to be a good partner, the love relationship would be destroyed and shattered by hate. He also thinks that for love to be continued in a relationship, it must be balanced by hate. Supported by the whole second quote of Mercutio. This means that for love to be maintained between two people, there would be quarrels or anything that hurt each other, especially words, described like thorns pricking each other. This shows that hate would be generated while in a love relationship, in order to balance love.

(Benvolio & Romeo, 1.2.96-103)

jaenasim — 2024-03-02 10:16:13 UTC

Sam, Sasha: This quote shows how different characters may perceive free will. We can see that Benvolio believes Romeo’s attraction to Rosaline is due to the fact that he met her while no other women were around. Thus being forced to feel attracted to her. While Romeo believes that he had met her and developed said attraction out of his own volition.

(Romeo, 1.4.106-113)

jaenasim — 2024-03-02 10:16:39 UTC

Ren Hao: This quote reveals the idea that fate is controlling his life and not giving him any free will, and Romeo is able to recognise this. Romeo shows that he fears too early for his mind misgiving, and knows that some consequence for him is hanging in the stars, waiting to happen to him, also known as his death. Romeo also suggest that the fate he has is by some vile forfeit of untimely death, showing that he knows that fate will cause death to him at any time. Finally, Romeo shows that he, known as god, is controlling his fate by “guiding his sail on his course”, no matter what choice Romeo chooses, he knows that his fate will be sealed by death.

Jadyn:

this quote shows romeo foreshadowing the bad things that will happen if he goes to the party and the death and violence that follow, yet ultimately deciding that he doesn’t care, and that “whoever’s in charge of where my life’s going can steer me wherever they want”. although romeo’s gut feeling was right in the end, which proves that his fate was ‘written in the stars’, this all could’ve been prevented if he had just not went to the party, following his uneasy gut feeling and changing the outcome, ‘defying’ his fate and changing his destiny. this then leads us to question; is fate really something all powerful that determines our whole lives, or can one simple choice we make change the entire outcome of our lives?

(Benvolio & Tybalt, 1.1.58-62)

jaenasim — 2024-03-02 15:02:49 UTC

Zi Hao, Adriel:

(Prince Escalus, 1.1.73-5)

jaenasim — 2024-03-02 15:03:48 UTC

Natnicha, Alivia: This quote reveals how Prince Escalus was passionate about the peace between his people. He uses a harsh tone to emphasise his unhappiness about the fight and his attempt of stopping it. In the quote, he referred to them as “beasts” and mentioned the phrase “With purple fountains issuing from your veins”. This shows how the situation was serious which serves as a reason why the prince reacted in such a way. With this, his desperation and emotion in the quote shows the passion that Prince Escalus has in maintaining peace.

(Tybalt, 1.5.52-58)

jaenasim — 2024-03-02 15:11:26 UTC

Jing Rui, Kit Yeung, Somang: this quote shows Tybalt’s passion of the Capulets. He is willing to kill a montague with no shame proclaiming its to protect the honour of his family. this shows the passion of his family is very strong

(Tybalt, 1.5.188-89)

jaenasim — 2024-03-02 15:12:16 UTC

Jing Rui, Kit Yeung, Somang: tybolts passion to his family is very strong. He is willing to find any reason to fight with the montagues, with even the thought of a montague makes him very angry.

(Montague, 1.1.151-153)

jaenasim — 2024-03-04 02:03:06 UTC

Pui Teng, Rex:
Shakespeare represents life through the word “bud”, a flower that is yet to bloom; full of life. He also uses “envious worm” to represent a flower being destroyed by a parasite, the suffering of death. The quote “dedicate his beauty to the sun” also could mean how Shakespeare wanted to talk about the many great people who could’ve contributed more to society and humankind if it weren’t for the life threatening diseases that could not be cured at the point in time as medicine wasn’t as well developed. The possibilities of life, cut down by death.

(Capulet, 1.2.26-30)

jaenasim — 2024-03-04 02:06:04 UTC

Azfer, Chun Hong, Tricia Pek, Jayden:

This quote reveals how the idea of innocence in love can be taken by anyone. "Such comfort do lusty young men feel" Capulet is condemning this person by calling him lusty, and "well-appareled April", April is Spring in the UK, so "aming fresh fennel buds" makes sense. This could be a referrence to the innocence of Juliet since it is "fresh". This would mean the quote implies that young men lust over innocence of Juliet.

(Capulet, 1.5.19-22)

jaenasim — 2024-03-04 02:06:12 UTC

Kariel, Yu Theng:

(Juliet, 1.5.140-141)

jaenasim — 2024-03-04 04:49:20 UTC