Misunderstanding In Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet

Two young lovers must keep their marriage alive by communicating through others, but this inevitably kills them both. Paradoxical situations as such are present in The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, a tragic play about two young people of rival families who die at the hand of indirect messages. Some argue that fate is the silent killer of Romeo and Juliet, however, the especially tragic end of the two is a direct result of the characters’ inability to deliver verbal messages clearly. Overall, the abundance of misunderstanding is the paramount contributor to Romeo and Juliet’s deaths. To commence, Friar Laurence’s ambiguous use of language leads to confusion that consequently leads to Romeo and Juliet’s demise. Complex

For instance, Juliet’s sorrow about Romeo’s banishment is apprehended as grief over Tybalt’s death. While the Capulets grieve over the death of a loved one, Juliet tells her mother, “Madam I am not well / … / let me weep for such a feeling loss / Feeling so the loss, I cannot choose but ever weep the friend” (3.5.71-84). Juliet cries more for the banishment of her husband Romeo, not for Tybalt; however, the Capulets mistakenly infer that she is upset because of Tybalt’s death due to her unclear statements. In addition, Juliet’s fake death is perceived as being caused by grief over her cousin’s death, due to her previous admissions to her mother. With evidence from Juliet’s past alleged “statements” about her fallen cousin, the Capulets fail to make adequate assumptions. As Paris says when he sees Romeo by the Capulet tomb after Juliet’s fake death, “This is that banisht haughty Montague / That murdered my love’s cousin—with which grief / It is supposed the fair creature died” (5.3.52-54). Juliet’s misinterpreted “sorrow” and death fuels the fire of rage against the Montagues, especially Romeo, as he is the one who started the snowball effect by killing cousin Tybalt. Her ineffective speech leads to a chain of events in which all of those involved have a completely different understanding of the situation, making these confusions an explosive combination. The result of the

The letter, intended for Romeo, provides context about Juliet’s fake death and offers the receiving party proper steps to take in order to flee Verona with his lover but it never reaches Romeo because of complications in the messenger’s journey. As explained by Friar Laurence about the direness of the letter’s contents, it “...was not nice, but full of charge, / Of dear import, and the neglecting it / May do much danger” (Shakespeare 5.2.19-21). True danger lies not within the letter itself, but within Romeo’s ignorance of the situation. Uninformed and irrational Romeo wishes to join his lover in death immediately upon hearing she is dead: “Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee tonight,” (5.1.37). Romeo and Juliet, along with Friar Laurence, are now entwined in a coil of misconceptions. As demonstrated by the lack of alignment between the two parties, “The misunderstandings that plague Romeo and Juliet grow out of a quibble over letters and grow into an increasingly desperate discontinuity between intention and expression, literal and figurative, fact and message. Missing threatens ultimately to isolate the lovers from each other... by disrupting the means by which they synchronize in time and place” (Heyworth 36). The lack of clarity between the two parties poses a threat to the future of these two lovers, as Romeo rashly plans to end a tragic example of sheer confusion by committing suicide. Romeo does not get the clarification he needs about the status