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Love And Darkness In Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet

725 Words3 Pages
Light symbolizes purity and love while darkness gives off the impression of fear, hate, and violence. In Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”, the playwright flips the symbolism, blurring the line between what is good and bad. This gives off the message that not all things appear as they are first perceived. The play’s main characters, Romeo and Juliet, discover that love can be soothing but can also be rough. Hate is malicious, but it can also lead to righteousness. The contrast illustrates how love and hate are two sides of the same coin, where love springs forth from hate, and hate blooms out of love (anadiplosis). This intertwining reveals that they are part of the same whole, where you can’t have without the other. Thus, for the hatred to end between the Montague and the Capulets, the love between Romeo and Juliet must be sacrificed to pay the price, heightening the tragic ending. Modern trends portray the day with images of heaven and light, and darkness with depictions of anger and darkness. However, Shakespeare flips this symbolism, condemning the day while romanticizing the night. This is evident when Juliet says, “the world will be in love with night/ And pay no worship to the garish sun” (3.2.24-5). The light and dark imagery directly relates back the concept of how good things like the day can turn evil, white bad things like night can be good. Moreover, this ties directly back to the concept of love’s roughness, and how hate can lead to good-intentions. Love’s
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