Romeo and Juliet is Not a Love Story: A Deeper Dive

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a sucker for love. It is the one thing I have truly, deeply, madly been obsessed with for as long as I can remember.

Please note: It is not my intention to offend anyone and/or their emotions/feelings/opinions. This is just me expressing my thoughts on the centuries-old saga and the age-old feeling it is based upon.

The whole idea of being in love or, considering the placebo effects, loving the IDEA of being in love is the most fascinating thing in the world to me.

Let’s face it, our entire lives are shaped around this one extremely overrated feeling. From William Blake’s poetry to movies to following passions, we’re all too in love with the process, pun intended, to stop and think about the consequences of our mindless escapades.

Spoiler: Romeo and Juliet is Not a Love Story

Exhibit A — the most celebrated English playwright is best known for a love story that ends with two teenagers dying.

“A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life.” — Prologue — Romeo and Juliet

Sure, times were different during Shakespeare’s era but we still haven’t stopped talking about Romeo and Juliet five centuries later. We still haven’t stopped worshipping the love and dedication of the protagonists towards each other and the rivalries of their families that lead them to the infamous poison-dagger climax. You talk about love, you talk about Romeo and Juliet. It’s almost as if the two have become synonymous.

With Love — Use Logic, Not Emotion

I do not have a personal vendetta against Shakespeare, trust me. I just think we should talk about Romeo and Juliet in a different way. Humans are too emotional to logically think the reason for the double-suicide through — love.

But is that all there is to love?

Meeting a stranger a day before and going the lengths as far as taking your own life for them the very next day?

Now, Romeo was never exactly on good terms with his family. And finally finding someone like Juliet who reciprocated all of his love and affection was something he had not received from them. It was something that was so overwhelming and so precious for him that when the fake news of Juliet’s death reached him from Verona, he couldn’t take it. The one important person in his world, his ray of sunshine — was gone.

Love: the Emotional Rollercoaster

Teenagers are driven by emotions.

Emotions are driven by hormones.

And keeping the laws of science in mind, Romeo’s body must have rushed with adrenaline and cortisol when he heard of Juliet’s death. And when you’re pumped with adrenaline, you have the urge to do something impulsive, something crazy.

Naturally, he was driven towards an equally crazy act too, which he did when he downed that vial of poison and ended his own life.

We all grow up listening to stories in which young princes ride in on their white horses, save the pretty damsels and distress, swoop them away and live happily ever after.

I am sure Shakespeare kept this under consideration when he wrote Romeo and Juliet.

Juliet must have always dreamed of riding away into the sunset on a white horse with a Prince Charming. And her dreams saw a flicker of reality when Romeo came along.

And remember their serenades from the balcony? Well, wasn’t that just convenient?

Decisions Made in the Fit of Emotions

Watching your dreams die, in this case, the woman of your dreams, literally, right in front of you, can be hard. Especially if you’re still way too young to understand the cruelties of life.

And if you don’t remember, Juliet was only 13 years old.

But watching someone, you thought you would spend your whole life with, lying motionless on the floor, right in front of you — it can be traumatising for anyone, especially at an age where your brain is still undergoing development.

The news of Juliet’s death was enough to push Romeo over the edge.

But Juliet was kneeling right over Romeo’s dead body. No wonder she did what she did.

But there’s a much deeper meaning to the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet than a family rivalry sorted after the deaths of the star crossed lovers.

Or maybe I just have too much time on my hands… but I think it makes sense.

My Version of What R+J Should Be

I watch a lot of School of Life videos, and even though it is not, I certainly do wish that this blog was sponsored by them. Seriously, they are my favourite YouTube channel. There was this one video in particular that made me think about the way we make everyday decisions. Be it, how we choose our friends, how we react when other people approach us. It all goes back to our childhoods.

In a way, it can be said that Romeo’s death was fueled by his soured relationship with his family. If only he had known love and kindness in his own home, maybe he wouldn’t be so insensibly in “love” with Juliet. And I use quotes here because it has been established that what we look for in a loving relationship is what we want to look for. And what we want to look for are patterns.

It is not known for certain but over the years it has been debated that while Juliet was only 13 years old, Romeo could be in anywhere from his late teens to his early 20s. This way it makes more sense for Romeo to choose a partner that was out of bounds.

He knew their families were not on the same page and yet he chose Juliet to be the love of his life. All throughout his childhood he had never known easy love. The kind of love he thought he felt for Juliet was fuelled from his need for a similar pattern from his early childhood — a pattern based on difficult relationships. Being with Juliet was as difficult as it could get.

Here’s another thing, keeping this fatal Veronese masterpiece in mind, we need to understand that the definition of love is not limited to a partner. It expands to our family, our friends, our hobbies and our passions. In my opinion, the characters of Shakespeare’s saga failed to focus on that.

Literary critic, Denton Jacques Snider said, and I quote, ”love, the emotion of the Family, in its excess destroys the Family; though it be the origin and bond of the domestic institution, it now assails and annihilates that institution.” which is true because while Romeo and Juliet did die tragic deaths, it was their families who were left to suffer the most.

The regret, pain and loss from the deaths of their children brought them together. Only so that they could have someone who would feel their pain too. Someone who they could mourn with.

What Does Last Forever

Why I am focusing on this age-old drama so much is because of the rising number of people willing to act in the same manner for their ‘one true love’ because, apparently, it makes your love last forever. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t.

Although the one thing that does last forever in such acts is the painful aftermath that the victims’ families have to go through.

This is not a suicide helpline post, although I do encourage conversations in case you’re having such thoughts, this is my attempt at making people stop and think about the direness of the actions taken in the name of love.

Wearing a blindfold of a feeling that has been exalted by humankind for as long as we have existed is not a legit explanation for destroying your and other’s lives around you.

The Overrated Feeling That is Love

Love is a feeling.

Hatred is a feeling.

Jealousy is a feeling.

Why there is a need to exalt just one of these feelings is beyond me.

Just like jealousy doesn’t count as an excuse for an irrational decision taken in the heat of the moment, the same way love doesn’t either.

Feelings are a rush of hormones manipulating our brain. It is up to us whether we want to be manipulated or not. Brains work on chemistry — not the one they talk about in the movies — but more like a petri dish in a science lab.

I’m pretty sure I’m ruining a lot of people’s vibes and pardon me if I end up destroying your dream castle big time. But maybe that’s exactly what we need to do — destroy our castles, burst our bubbles, ruin our vibes, whatever terminology you might want to use. (more on that in the future)

Leaving the Comfort Zones

One psychological reason why we like staying in our bubbles is that we’re scared of what we might have to face in the real world. It is so much better and safer to just pretend like nothing is wrong and fairytales are real.

But what happens when fairytales take uncomfortable turns that are definitely not in sync with our make-believe worlds? We change them too.

After all, what we pass on generation after generation is a highly filtered stack of the original Grimm’s fairytales. And that’s how scared we are.

Our unwillingness to look at the world as it is is the reason why most of us pretend bravery and superiority while acting inappropriately when ‘in love’. In moments like these, the hollowness of our lives is lost upon us.

Bravery is not standing in the garden in the middle of a night to serenade.

Bravery is fighting wars.

Bravery is falling deep in an emotional pit and bouncing right back up.

Bravery is breaking the pattern and not settling for what we think we want but for what we need.

Which is why I finally decided to publish this post. The flawed definition, the hyped interpretation, the human mind has created a perception of love that is ludicrous and yet bewildering.

I want to go as deep into this topic as I can. It is not the feeling that fascinates me, it is how we react to it. Through this series of blogs, I want to explore the hidden depths of human psychology related to relationships through real-life stories that have rarely been told before.

Again, this is just me expressing my opinions. I do not wish to harm anyone in any way.