Romeo

We possibly learn everything we need to know about Romeo when we first meet him at the start of the play:

• Firstly: he is not like the other male characters.

• He has no interest in the quarrel.

• He is sensitive and isolated.

• Love has full control over his mind and actions - he is unable to control his strong feelings.

• At the start of the play, in his unreturned love for Rosaline, Romeo can be described as a Petrarchan lover.

• In terms of love, Romeo feels internally conflicted - feeling both joy and pain at the same time:

“Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;

Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes;

Being vexed, a sea nourished with loving tears.

What is it else? A madness most discreet, A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.”

Act 1 scene 1

• Here, as in many of his quotes at the start of the play, Romeo uses both negative and positive language to describe love: it is equally 'smoke', 'fume' 'sighs' 'madness' 'choking gall' (poison) and yet 'sparkling', and 'a preserving sweet'. This shows the two opposing states of mind he experiences simultaneously: love and hate, creating an uncomfortable lack of harmony of his emotions

• Ultimately, you can argue that he is a victim of his emotions.

• "A madness most discreet, A choking gall"

Romeo's love is both poison and 'madness' to the point that he loses a sense of proportion and balance. Even with Juliet, his love for her is akin to madness and posion: when he is exiled, he tells Friar Lawrence that he would rather be dead than separated from Juliet; he then takes his life when he believes Juliet is dead. The line in bold also foreshadows the fact that he takes 'gall' (poison').

Romeo's key changes across the play:

• Lovesick for Rosaline.

• Isolated from his family, nursing his strong emotions.

• Moves on quickly when he meets Juliet.

• He experiences a deeper, more spiritual love when he meets Juliet.

• Romeo offers Juliet high status in their relationship.

• Even with Juliet, Romeo remains a separated and isolated character, almost in the same way he was at the start when he locked himself away: 'henceforth I will no longer be Romeo', readily disconnecting his ties to his family so that he can be with Juliet.

• Romeo is further outcast / exiled after he kills Tybalt. The detachment from the source of his love (Juliet) is too unbearable for him to cope with.

• When he is denied his love when he believes Juliet is dead, the only way he knows to cope with this is through taking his own life.