Social Classes In Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet

“My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep; the more I give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite.” ― William Shakespeare from Romeo and Juliet. In Romeo and Juliet, Romeo is a Montague and Juliet is a Capulet, which are two rivaling high class families. This story is a great example of how the social class system works with the Montagues and Capulets being high class and having servants while those servants have nothing but their jobs. This was written in European literature which was later brought to America. Throughout American literature social classes have influenced writing while at other times they seem irrelevant.

The social class system played a major role in the Realism age. Its importance is shown in the story

It is shown how social classes are avoided in Patrick Henry’s speech “Give me liberty or give me death”. In the speech he talks about how he wants the US and everyone in it to start a fight against the British. When he gives the speech he does not care who joins the fight against the British, whether it be people of a high ranking class or slaves, so long as they put up a fight. This is showing how the age of reason made the social classes irrelevant. The lack of a social class system can also be seen in the Pre-European/Native American age in the poem “The Sky Tree”. In the sky tree when the chief is dying the burden falls onto his wife to find a way to cure him. If the social class system would have existed it would have fallen onto the next male in line because in the Native American age the males had a more dominant role in society than the women did. Along with those two ages the Romantics avoided using the social class system in their writings. This is shown in the book the “Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne. In the book Hester Prynne is convicted of adultery and when she is she becomes shunned by everyone. Although she is shunned by everyone she does not fall in social class. She stays in the same class as she was before she was charged with adultery. She still has her house and a way of making a living. These ages liked to use themes other than social classes in their writings