Death is a recurring event in Shakespeare’s Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Two star crossed lovers take their lives, and their families are joined after an eternal feud. When Romeo Montague commits suicide after finding his young bride supposedly dead, the dramatic scene sets the catastrophe in motion and speaks to his tragic flaw of impulsiveness. It also illuminates the true meaning of the play, which is the power of hatred, and eludes to every character's feeling towards their fate. Does Romeo’s self inflicted death make him a villain after all, or is he simply an impulsive young man with a big heart, doomed by blood never to love a Caplet? Romeo’s suicide triggers the downward spiral from his anagnorisis to his demise, and the many deaths …show more content…
Romeo, banished from Verona, is informed by his trusted friend Balthazaar that Juliet’s funeral was held that day. In reality, Friar Lawrence aided her in faking her death with a potion to avoid her arranged marriage to county Paris, but this is unbeknownst to Romeo. On horseback, he rides to the Capulet tomb and finds his wife, still and unconscious, inside. Romeo, overcome by the emotional pain from the assumption that his love had died, hastily pulls out the vial of poison he purchased from a poor apothecary to be with Juliet eternally in heaven. As he drinks, the reader is aware that this would be a romantic gesture if not for the catastrophe about to erupt; Juliet stirs and awakens to find her lover’s cold body. She weeps, and penetrates her rib cage with his dagger. If Romeo had waited mere seconds before making such a thoughtless decision, both would be alive and ready to start a new life together in Mantua. Without Romeo’s tragic flaw of impetuous, emotional thinking, the story would have taken a sentimental turn. Juliet’s death, caused by Romeo’s, is not the final consequence of his flaw, however. Along with the damage he had done, Romeo’s suicide made him a martyr and squashed the vendetta between the Capulets and