Crushes In Romeo And Juliet

In the play Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare writes a tragedy filled with love and sorrow. Romeo and Juliet rush into their relationship without much thought, and Romeo goes to the wrong adult to discuss his marriage plans. Both of these situations were results of ill-begotten identity and romantic crushes. Shakespeare uses both romantic and identity crushes to show that parents should take teenage crushes seriously many times throughout the play of Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare uses romantic crushes to show that parents should take teenage crushes seriously by writing into Romeo and Juliet many scenes where the Lord and Lady of both Montague and Capulet had the opportunity to save their children if they had taken their respective crushes

After the famous balcony scene, Romeo is determined to marry Juliet, so he heads to see Friar Lawrence and ask if he is able to marry him and Juliet, saying, “‘ know my heart’s dear love is set on the fair daughter of rich Capulet . . . I pray, that thou consent to marry us today’” (2.3.56-64). The Friar reluctantly agrees to marry the lovers in secret. Romeo has an identity crush on Friar Lawrence because Romeo, though he has known the Friar since a young age, should have told his parents but instead told the Friar, who he much admired and treated like a leader. A person forms an identity crush when they find “someone they much admire, want to become like, and treat as a leader or model they are eager to imitate and follow” (Pickhardt). Romeo admired Friar Lawrence so much that he would rather confide his marital ambitions in him than his own parents. Shakespeare uses this example of an identity crush to show that Romeo made a mistake in telling Friar Lawrence and that he should’ve told his parents, who would have made sure Romeo and Juliet took their time in their relationship. However, this does not excuse Romeo’s parent’s failure to pay attention to their son, for if they had, surely they would have noticed something was the