Romeo & Juliet: Themes (Edexcel GCSE English Literature)

Having a thorough grasp of the following themes, and crucially, how and why Shakespeare explores these themes will enable you to produce a “conceptualised response” in your exam. Linking carefully to the structure of the plot and what we know about the attitudes of the time period will give you access to the very highest marks on the mark scheme.

• Love
• Conflict 
• Honour
• Fate

In the play, Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare presents the challenges faced by two young people in love due to societal attitudes and family pressures. Shakespeare’s play shows how closely related love is to hate and how this throws obstacles in love’s path. 

Romeo and Juliet as a tragedy

Knowledge and evidence:

• The play is in the form of a Tragedy:
  • In this play, Shakespeare shows the deaths of both Romeo and Juliet as a tragedy for their families 
• According to conventions of Ancient Greek tragedy, the tragic hero is punished by the gods for actions resulting from their hamartia :
  • The protagonist’s death often ends a tragedy
  • The characters of both Romeo and Juliet are the play’s tragic heroes
  • Their tragic flaw is confusion and impulsiveness in familial and romantic love 
• A  sonnet  is shared by Romeo and Juliet when they meet:
  • Sharing the lines connotes equality in their love
  • Religious imagery within the sonnet suggests purity
• Friar Laurence marries the pair in secret in a bid to bring peace to the families
  • Friar Laurence  foreshadows the tragedy: “these violent delights have violent ends”   
• The play ends in a double tragedy as the “star-cross’d” lovers die together to seal their love

Patriarchal structures in Renaissance England

Knowledge and evidence: 

• The patriarchal system in Renaissance families meant the father controlled all other family members:
  • Juliet is obligated to marry the man chosen by her father, Lord Capulet
  • Lord Capulet disowns Juliet when she refuses to marry a man she does not love
• Societal values for males within this structure prioritised family love over romantic love:
  • Romeo’s friends and family sway him away from thoughts about love and force him into the family feud
  • Romeo attempts to avoid conflict. He tells Tybalt, “The reason I have to love thee does much excuse the appertaining rage with which you greet me”

What is Shakespeare’s intention?

• Shakespeare challenges societal norms in Renaissance culture that prioritise marriage for social advancement over love
• Shakespeare shows how discrimination and hatred in the name of family love leads to violence and tragedy
• Shakespeare presents ideas about expectations of gender roles by presenting the external pressures placed upon Romeo and Juliet when they fall in love 
• By closely aligning love and hate in the play, he shows them as opposites which are inextricably linked
• Shakespeare challenges patriarchal expectations regarding masculinity which encourage conflict rather than love

As much as the play is about love, it is equally about conflict. Conflicts are shown between friends, within families and between families. Shakespeare’s characters are unaware of the reason behind the feud, suggesting it is emotional rather than logical.

Parental conflict 

Knowledge and evidence: 

• Juliet’s conflict with her parents lies in her refusal to marry Paris:

• • Disowned and isolated, she is driven to extreme measures: “O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris, From off the battlements of any tower” 
  • Juliet seeks advice and comfort from her nurse 

• Romeo’s conflict is shown by his inability to communicate with his parents:

• • Lord Montague knows his son is struggling with confusing feelings, but directs Romeo’s friend, Benvolio, to comfort him 
  • Lady Montague shows concern about Romeo brawling in the streets but knows little of her son’s whereabouts 
  • Romeo seeks a paternal figure in Friar Laurence

What is Shakespeare’s intention?

• Shakespeare questions the role of indiscriminate hatred by showing two families at war with no idea why
• Shakespeare presents the possible outcomes of family conflict by showing Juliet’s despair at being disowned
• Shakespeare challenges conflict and violence brought about by peer pressure between friends 
• Shakespeare shows how conflicts between friends, families and feuding factions bring about even more conflict, violence and, ultimately, tragedy

The conflict between the house of Montagues and the house of Capulets is presented as a feud based upon family honour. The characters in the play believe very strongly in upholding their family honour; part of that meant hating the enemy family.

Knowledge and evidence: 

• The first scene shows the families willing to start a petty fight over an “ancient grudge”:
  • The servants from each house bite thumbs at each other in insult
• Tybalt Capulet presents family honour explicitly in the play:
  • He tells Benvolio that he hates peace, hell and all Montagues  
  • When Romeo is identified at the Capulet party he states, “By the stock and honour of my kin, to strike him dead I hold it not a sin”
• Romeo attempts to avoid the  feud and does not abide by family honour:
  • He tells Tybalt that he holds the Capulet name as dearly as his own 
  • Shakespeare employs  dramatic irony  so that only the audience, Romeo, Juliet, the nurse and the friar know about the secret marriage
  • Romeo’s friend, Mercutio, believes his refusal to fight Tybalt is, a “vile, dishonourable submission”
  • Romeo’s murder of Tybalt as revenge for Mercutio’s death leads to his exile
• Juliet asks Romeo to deny his father and refuse his name so they can be together:
  • In a soliloquy , she asks, “What’s in a name?” questioning the family feud over honour

What is Shakespeare’s intention?

• Shakespeare challenges ideas about family duty and honour by presenting them as potentially damaging forces
• Shakespeare points out how the Capulets and Montagues prioritise their desires for social status and how their love of their family name leads them to abandon their children’s desires and concerns 
• Shakespeare shows how peer pressure related to honour can lead to violence
• Shakespeare presents two young people who are confused by the way their families hate indiscriminately in the name of family honour

Romeo and Juliet are doomed from the start, we learn from the prologue . But throughout the play, Shakespeare presents Romeo and Juliet trying to master their free will and overcome powers of destiny which are tied up in external pressures around them. 

Knowledge and evidence: 

• In the absence of scientific knowledge, most Elizabethans believed in the ideas of fate and astrology and would consult or blame the stars for their luck and misfortune:
  • Many people would submit free will and look to the stars, believing the gods had  ‘predestined’ their fortunes
• Shakespeare’s tragedy begins with the  chorus telling the audience that the two lovers are “star-cross’d” and their destiny is set
• The Prologue shows Shakespeare’s clear choice to let audiences watch events unfold:
  • Romeo and Juliet battle with their own free will within turbulent relationships
  • Audiences witness how external events affected their future
• By using  juxtaposition  to show contrasting scenes next to each other, Shakespeare shows the “passage of their death-mark’d love” with dramatic tension
• Romeo represents the most fateful character in the play:
  • He begins by accepting fate, asking it to “Direct my sails”. This leads him to his fated encounter with Juliet
  • Shakespeare  foreshadows  this with Romeo’s premonition just before the Capulet ball where he sees his “untimely death” ahead of him
  • By the climax of the play, Romeo reluctantly accepts he is “fortune’s fool!” having been exiled to Mantua for murdering Tybalt
  • In a twist of fate Romeo receives the wrong message and learns that Juliet is dead 
  • In a defiant act of free will, Romeo goes back to Verona: “I defy you, Stars!”
• Juliet believes fate to be fickle and unpredictable:
  • She senses impending doom when she meets Romeo and likens her marriage bed to a grave
  • In a premonition she sees Romeo as one “dead at the bottom of a tomb”
• The play ends with a morbid twist of fate, as Romeo and Juliet’s fateful timing leads to their deaths, thus confirming the   chorus  predictions in the Prologue

What is Shakespeare’s intention?

• Shakespeare challenges ideas about autonomy over our lives
• Shakespeare asks audiences to question whether coincidence or destiny is at work in the story
• Shakespeare presents the possibilities that fate can be connected closely to the environment by showing how conflicts and pressures impact choices
• Shakespeare challenges an Elizabethan audience who believed that the stars and planets impacted their fortunes