Please, don't get me wrong. Shakespeare's got mad writing skills. Or as my friend argued to me, "Dude can write"! However, how is "Romeo and Juliet" the greatest love story of all time? I say, it's a tragedy about two complete brats.
If Romeo and Juliet relived their story in today's society, we'd look upon them as two, impulsive, teen hooligans. We'd feel bad for their parents and think them to be too sexually inquisitive for their age. Let us break down each character.
I call Romeo a fickle player. If he were alive today, Romeo would hop from one girl to the next, and become the "baby daddy" of at least 5 kids, before he turned 20-years-old. I mean, at the beginning of the play, Romeo is getting over Rosalyn, who he claims has caused him severe heartbreak. She doesn't feel for him the way he does for her, and he's suicidal. Then, after one quick glance at Juliet, he declares his love for her. That's physical attraction, not true emotion. You know what his friends would tell him today? They'd say, "Poor you, Romeo. The prettiest girl in school doesn't like you. Grow a pair and get over it". I'd definitely call Romeo faithless, and even a little bit of a wuss.
Juliet, on the other hand, we'd call stupid, just plain stupid. Often throughout Shakespeare's play, she threatens to kill herself, if she cannot be with her Romeo. She is a teenager who cannot have her way, and threatens her parents with a horrible act, hoping they give in to her whims. That's a whippersnapper, if I've ever heard of one.
Also, why isn't anyone calling these two CRAZY? Let's put the end of the story into the real world.... They are two young people who get married within 24 hours. Eventually, Juliet fakes her own death, Romeo forgets to check his email that day, and then kills himself when he finds her playing dead. Juliet wakes up, with her new husband's corpse on top of her, probably wishing she pulled a Britney Spears and just got the marriage annulled within 12 hours. She, because she's crazy, snaps and then kills herself too. Wow... how romantic.
"Romeo and Juliet" is NOT a love story, let alone the greatest of all time. If anything, I'd call it a lust story, a tragic lust story. Romeo hops from one girl to the next, believing himself to be in love before speaking to a girl, Juliet is spoiled and full of angst, throwing temper tantrums if she can't get her way, and they both get married within 24 hours of knowing each other. This is all a combination for tragedy.
If you're truly looking for a good love story, I'll leave you with a short list of suggestions:
The Notebook
Pride and Prejudice
Tristan + Isolde
Penelope and Odysseus
Ever After
~Syleste~
0 comments:
Post a Comment