Analyzing Shakespeare's Use Of Flowers In Romeo And Juliet

You’re On Your Own, Kid: Analyzing Shakespeare’s use of Flowers in Romeo and Juliet

A sprout rises from the ground, ready to receive sunlight and take on a life of beauty. Before it realizes, this flower receives too much exposure to the sun, “deflowering” and dying. A similar life to this flower is created in William Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet. A pair of young kids, named Romeo and Juliet, think they are ready for an independent life, but soon realize that maybe their innocence was lost on the way and their love was fated from the beginning. Described through flowers, Juliet’s life and love are a privilege that she cannot keep. In his play Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare utilizes, through the motif of flowers, that when Juliet was given

Following Juliet’s death, she is commonly described as a flower. Surprisingly, even her father’s initial thought of seeing her dead was recognizing her loss of innocence and beauty, expressing “Flower as she was, deflowered by him. Death is my son-in-law; death is my heir. My daughter he hath wedded. I will die And leave him all. Life, living all is death’s” (IV.V.43-46). By calling his daughter “flower” before Juliet, Lord Capulet matches society in viewing Juliet’s loss of innocence, and how her independence has led her to this fate. Shakespeare uses the term “deflowered” in a sense of losing the beauty and innocence she once had. Lord Capulet is portrayed as a mourning father following the loss of his beloved daughter. For instance, in the moment of learning of his daughter's tragic fate, Lord Capulet directs his staff to alter the flowers from the wedding as funeral decorations, stating, "Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corpse, And all things, change them to the contrary" (IV.V.95-96). By comparing the flowers that were meant to be used for his daughter's wedding to funeral decorations, Shakespeare displays how Juliet's forced marriage was a factor in her loss of innocence and eventually, her death. The flowers that were meant to represent the start of a new life with Romeo now

Even since the beginning of the story, it is evident that something in the story is going to go wrong. For example, Friar Lawrence, in some way, hints at an issue further in the book, claiming “Within the infant rind of this weak flower Poison hath residence and medicine power: For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part” (II.III.23-26) Friar Lawrence points out that in every good there will come bad, by using a weak flower as his example for “medicine” which could’ve been used as a gift, and “poison” which ends up taking over. Juliet’s independence was shown to have the ability to be used for good, but, consequently, the fated innocence inside of it results in her death. Following Juliet’s death, Shakespeare goes back to Lord Capulet, writing about his description of Juliet’s beauty again, but also relating it to the death that “lies on her like an untimely frost 30 Upon the sweetest flower of all the field” (IV.V.33-34). Shakespeare’s use of an “untimely frost” on the “sweetest flower” goes into his daughter’s independence, that he had no idea even existed, which is why this loss of innocence is so unexpected to him. To conclude, Juliet’s fate was destined due to her independence and freewill being handed over so easily, which is what affected her living