Hate In Romeo And Juliet

To introduce the text of Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare wrote a sonnet style, iambic pentameter prologue to tell the readers of the text what they are about to read. This prologue talks about the never ending feud between the two families, Montague and Capulet. It explains that because of these two families feud they each shed blood from one another. It introduces the idea of the fated love between Romeo and Juliet and their inevitable end together. During this prologue Shakespeare writes that because of Romeo and Juliet’s tragic death they ended the hatred between their two families. It ends with the utmost certainty of telling the audience that if they are patient enough they will discover all that has been left out of the prologue.

One of the most important ideas presented in the opening words of the play is that hate is the breaking point for many things, it destroys the beauty of life. Hate is a very strong idea throughout the entire play. There are multiple events in Romeo and Juliet that are caused because of the hatred held between certain characters in the book. For example, Tybalt’s rage towards Romeo, and all Montague’s in general, led to the death of Romeo’s best friend, Mercutio. Mercutio’s last words being, “A plague o’ both houses” (pg. 121). This in itself is the definition of hatred because Mercutio wished the plague on Romeo even though Romeo was only trying to diffuse the fight between the two. Since Tybalt killed Mercutio, Romeo beleived that the only way to avenge his death was in killing Tybalt, which later led to Romeo killing Tybalt. This occurred because of the ancient hatred between two families that never even tried to live peacefully with each