Examples Of Self Destruction In Romeo And Juliet

The Self-Destructive Nature of Youthful Love

Although love was a prevalent theme throughout the growing Elizabethan Era literature, love was merely a sense of fantasy and imagination for the people of this age. Common amongst noble and wealthy families, arranged marriages were solely done for the benefit of social status, material wealth, and overall gain. This includes the families of Romeo and Juliet, who were expected to marry as per their parents’ decisions. William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet represents the topic of young love by showing the star-crossed lovers' impulsive actions and their desire to rebel against their families for one another. The young lovers consistently display a tendency to act without thinking clearly, turning

From this, we can identify how the themes of self-destruction and suicidal tendencies can be found in the impulsive and misguided young love of Romeo and Juliet.

Romeo and Juliet both exhibit suicidal impulses that illustrate how young love has an inclination towards self-destructive tendencies. The term self-destructive refers to any actions or behaviours that can emotionally or physically cause harm to oneself, with short-term and/or long-term consequences. We can see how this definition aligns with the behaviours and actions of Romeo and Juliet throughout most of the play, where they continuously make self-destructive and impulsive decisions with no thought to the consequences. They exhibit many suicidal tendencies through their actions and words in the name of love, rather than realizing and being conscious of their own harmful behaviours and preventing

W can apprehend that the suicidal tendencies of the lovers are connected to the overall theme of young love due to their excessive blind love leading to their suicides, the highest form of self-destruction. When examining young love and its effects on teens, we can see that the immaturity of youth, their lack of experience, and their lack of comprehension of their emotions almost always led them to believe their infatuation or attraction to someone is true love. When this “true love” begins to face obstacles, many young lovers will begin to experience low self-esteem, depression, and complete devastation. This is the same incident that occurs when Romeo is banished from Verona and his relationship with Juliet is put in jeopardy. These immature and indulgent lovers begin to experience extreme devastation and depression, which drives them to kill themselves. They see suicide as their only option because they’re blinded by their intense infatuation to realize the many other options they had. Their excess and blind young love forces them to make rash decisions because they don’t know any better, which becomes the source of their suicidal proclivities and ultimately their deaths. For example, when Juliet learns of Romeo’s banishment, she says “My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain, And