Romeo and Juliet 961“Unhappy fortune” hounds the couple and scut-
tles their plans to reunite, as Friar Laurence’s let-
ter to Romeo, carried by Friar John, does not get
through because of the Black Death. The seemingly
contrived plot device—a quarantine barring the
delivery of a letter—would have underscored for
Shakespeare’s audience the horrors of plague and the
ever-present proximity of death. Romeo’s last words
in the play link, forever, love and death: “Thus with
a kiss I die” (5.3.120).
Anthony Perrello
IndIvIduaL and SocIety in Romeo
and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is probably the most regularly
taught work of literature in high-school classrooms,
and no surprise: Teachers assume that the text is
relevant to their students’ lives because of the uni-
versal experience of young love, and this play strikes
a particularly resonant chord with young people
whose families oppose their love.
The conflicts in Romeo and Juliet are multifac-
eted, starting with that most basic of societal insti-
tutions, the family. There is a long-standing feud
between the Montagues and the Capulets, one so
old that no one even cares to remember the cause
of the deadly enmity. Nevertheless, the love felt by
these two individuals causes them to rebel against
family heritage.
The patriarchal power structure in Renaissance
families made Juliet’s position a vulnerable one.
As Hermia learns in Shakespeare’s a midSummer
night’S dream, the force of law stands behind the
father in decisions of marriage. Hermia is told by
none other than the duke of Athens that “To you
your father should be as a god; / One that com-
posed your beauties; yea, and one / To whom you
are but as a form in wax, / by him imprinted, and
within his power, / To leave the figure, or disfigure
it” (1.1.47–51). The duke here hints at the power
of life and death wielded by Renaissance fathers
over their children. In Romeo and Juliet, after the
murder of Tybalt in act 3, the previously reasonable
Capulet becomes mad with rage at the thought of
his daughter’s disobedience and ingratitude. He
had shown judgment and restraint earlier in urging
patience to the rash Paris, who was anxious to marry
his 13-year-old daughter, and to Tybalt, who would
have hotheadedly attacked Romeo at the family
ball. When Juliet dares hedge on the question of a
sudden marriage to her bland suitor, her mother’s
cold comment, “I would the fool were married to
her grave!” (3.5.140), is nothing compared to Capu-
let’s blind fury: “[G]o with Paris to Saint Peter’s
Church, / Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither”
(3.5.154–55). He further rages: “Graze where you
will, you shall not house with me. / . . . hang, beg,
starve, die in the streets, / For, by my soul, I’ll ne’er
acknowledge thee” (3.5.188–193).
Capulet threatens his daughter with the pre-
liminary torture reserved for those who commit
treason—dragging on a hurdle to execution. He also
threatens her with banishment and a life of shame
and ignominy. Such is the wrath of a Renaissance
father denied his right to match his daughter to
whom he sees fit. Fathers, after all, understand much
more than their young, impetuous daughters, and so
decide where their hearts will go. Juliet, according to
the wisdom of the time, has no right to choose her
own mate.
The lovers’ disavowal of their families is dra-
matized during the famous balcony scene in act 2,
scene 2. The names in the play, incidentally, echo
each other in their dactylic rhythms—hence Cap-
u-let, Mont-a-gue, Rom-e-o, Jul-i-et. Metrically, the
names are the same, yet they have come to represent
stubborn, partisan factions that cannot be reconciled.
Juliet famously wonders “wherefore [that is, why] art
thou Romeo?” and urges him, “Deny thy father and
refuse thy name” (2.2.33–34). Following Juliet’s
lead, Romeo does indeed “doff ” his name. Though
the name games the lovers play here may seem
lighthearted, the implications are serious: They have
forsworn their social identities by putting their love
before their families. “Call me but love,” says Romeo,
“and I’ll be new baptiz’d; / Henceforth I never
will be Romeo” (2.2.50–51). The religious imagery
the two lovers constantly invoke—as Romeo does
here—points to another social construct that the
lovers struggle against: religion.
Romeo is, for Juliet, “the god of my idolatry,”
while for Romeo, Juliet is a “dear saint,” whose body
is a “holy shrine.” Though they wait until marriage to
consummate their desires, their love is portrayed as