Banishment, Suicide and Other Signs You May be in Love
In William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet of 1597 there are many complex factors that lead to the deaths of the star-crossed protagonists though only one character is truly to blame. Romeo Montague and his poor judgement, changeable heart and flare for the dramatic led both him and Juliet to their early graves.
When romeo is first introduced in act one, scene one, he is pining for Rosaline, a beautiful girl who doesn’t love him. When speaking of her beauty and his devotion he says
When the devout religion of mine eye
Maintains such falsehood then turns tears to tires
And these, who, often drown’d, could never die
Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars!
One fairer than my love! The all-seeing sun
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88-93)
Romeo claims that there is no one as fair as his Rosaline though upon meeting Juliet says “Did my heart love ‘till now? Forswear, it sight! / For i ne’er saw true beauty ‘till this night” (1.5. 52-53) and doesn’t think of Rosaline again for the rest of the play. This shows Romeo’s changeable personality, had they lived any longer he would have fallen out of love with Juliet as well.
Romeo operates purely on impulse and when he chooses to do anything without conferring with Juliet or Friar Lawrence something goes horribly wrong. For example, after Mercutio was killed, Romeo could have gone home, avoiding a confrontation and ultimately the death of Juliet's cousin, Tybalt. Thus leaving Tybalt to be executed by Prince Escalus so Romeo would not have been banished from Verona.
And fire eyed fury be my conduct