Examples Of Mental Illness In Romeo And Juliet

Romeo and Juliet Essay
Warning signs of mental illness can foreshadow events such as suicide. In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, two teenagers from different houses fall in love. Romeo and Juliet struggle with keeping their relationship secret while their families feud. Their love for each other causes multiple deaths and raises tensions throughout the two houses. The star-crossed lovers end up commiting suicide for each other during a misunderstanding. Throughout the story of Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare, both Romeo and Juliet evince warning signs that their mental health led to their mutual death. Romeo exhibits warning signs of his mental health when he moves on from Rosaline in the span of a couple hours. In the beginning of the play, Romeo mourns after rejection from Rosaline Sunday morning. Moments later, Romeo finds himself in love with Juliet Sunday night. “With

Romeo and Juliet both act on their feet when they realize the other is dead. “Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath,/Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty” (Shakespeare 5.3.92). After Juliet’s plan with Friar Lawrence to fake her own death for Romeo, he visits her tomb to kill himself the day he found out. Romeo finds an apothecary in order to get the most deadly poison and makes Balthasar sit outside the tomb so he doesn’t prevent Romeo from carrying out his plan. To analyze, Romeo automatically jumped to conclusion when he got news delivered without confirming it. Romeo didn’t think through his plan because Juliet was alive the whole time she was just under a potion which shows how he acts only on impulse. According to the National Library of Medicine, 44.4% of suicide attempts were impulsive. This ties back to Romeo and Juliet because Romeo didn’t think through the consequences of committing suicide since Juliet was never dead which made the whole point of his act