Prioritizing Emotions Over Logic In Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet

The Consequences of Prioritizing Emotions Over Logic in “Romeo and Juliet” People are often told to follow their hearts, but to what extent? In Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”, Shakespeare uses many elements to illustrate the idea of emotions outweighing logic leading to disastrous consequences. Most notably, he uses characters, foreshadowing, and conflicts to portray this message. Many characters in this piece rely far too heavily on their emotions, leading to demise and tragedy. Though Juliet’s young age may forgive some of her behaviour, many unjustifiable actions prove that her blind faith in emotion leaves her values askew. One instance is after Tybalt’s death, she only cares about Romeo’s banishment, claiming “For ‘tis a throne where

Her absurdly high value for love not only is prioritized over the death of her cousin, but above the entire universe. Another dangerously sentiment-driven character is Tybalt, whose entire hot mess of a character is built around hate. His true colours are shown upon first seeing Romeo, when he proclaims “To strike him dead I hold it not a sin” (Shakespeare, I.V.LIX). The extremity of Tybalt’s prejudice-based hate driving him to claim killing someone would not be wrong based on a first impression shows how beyond dangerous emotions can be without the voice of reason. One final case of a character’s catastrophic care-free emotions is Romeo and his naive trust for any feeling that comes across him. His shift from grieving Rosaline, daring to state that he cannot even dance since “Not I, believe me. You have dancing shoes/With nimble soles, I have a soul of lead” (Shakespeare, I.IV.XIV-XV) to meeting Juliet an hour later, where he claims “Did my heart love till now? Forswear it,

To begin, the rage-fueled fight between Tybalt, Mercutio, and Romeo leads to this grudge taking two lives. Tybalt’s fury even fills the usually pacifist Romeo to be corrupted rage, as he states when he proclaims “And fire-eyed fury be my conduct now!”(Shakespeare, III.II.CXXIII). This fire-eyed fury which made a killer out of him did not make him kill Tybalt as a vigilante act to prevent other deaths like that of Mercutio, but rather out of primal rage and revenge. The hate which possesses Tybalt and briefly corrupts Romeo stems from the lethal grudge the families hold against one another. The prologue implying that the feud has been going on for longer than anyone knows may be a hint that in the past many more have been lost to this grudge. Even in the unlikely case that the battles between the Capulet and the Montague, six people is still a lot to lose all because two families dislike each other. Finally, the most obvious example of all is the double suicide in the climax of the show. Romeo and Juliet’s despair over learning of the other’s death drives them both to commit suicide. This kind of think first ask questions later behaviour caused by the emotion-driven feud of the families leads to the death of the young lovers, as well as Paris, an innocent third-party, and Lady Montague, who’s just a worried mother, in this scene alone.