Love And Belonging In Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet

Love and belonging needs are often overlooked, but nevertheless, important. It is necessary that people feel loved, wanted, and needed. Often times, people may think they are in love with each other when they are in love with love itself. Their needs are not met, so they create the idea of love to convince themselves their needs are met. This concept is present in one of the most famous pieces of literature, namely Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet’s relationship is based off of their hasty decisions and rushed feelings of love. To understand why they behaved in such a rash way, it is necessary to understand how their love and belonging needs were met. In the play, Juliet’s family life was prevalent, which displayed insight on how her love

However, it can be deciphered through Romeo’s actions that his love and belonging needs were not met. In the beginning of the play, Romeo was crying in the woods alone and locking himself in his bedroom, for he loved a girl who did not love him back. “Why, such is love’s transgression./Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,”(1.1.192-3). Here, Romeo is telling Benvolio that love creates sadness, and his sadness is heavy in his chest. He is so distraught because the girl he loves will not have sex with him, therefor not in love with him. In spite of this, Romeo moves on, finds Juliet, and marries her all within the next day. “Hence will I to my ghostly friar’s close cell,/His help to crave, and my dear hap to tell,”(2.2.204-5). Shown in this, Romeo is going to the friar’s cell to make wedding preparations within a few mere hours of meeting Juliet. Love takes time to develop, more time than a few hours after meeting someone at a party. Romeo’s desire for love makes him feel as though he is in love with any beautiful girl he happens to talk to. With this in mind, Romeo’s love and belonging needs are not met since he desires to be in love. Juliet happened to be the next girl that walked into his life, and neither of them happened to be meeting their love and belonging needs. Both of them desired to be in love, so it was easy for them to think they were in love with each other.