What are the types of love in Romeo and Juliet?

Fate plays a powerful role throughout the tale of Romeo and Juliet, a role of which none of the characters can compare with, witness this role as you observe the play (In my case, reading the play).

All the way through the misfortune of Romeo and Juliet, several types of love are shown. Benvolio feels that women are all identical, whereas, at the beginning, Romeo believes that love is some-sort of a form of pain. At the beginning, Juliet doesn't even know what love means. Paris's and Lady Capulet's definition for love is "in appearance." It is pretty obvious that Shakespeare wanted the audience to think that the only true love is the love that exists between Romeo and Juliet. I think that the first type of love that the audience is introduced to is the love of Benvolio; by how he feels that all women are identical. According to him, a man should love a woman for only the length of their relationship, meaning that if the relationship were to end, the man wouldn't feel sadness or sorrow, etc. even if the woman were to reject the man to begin with. In either situation, the man should plainly begin a new relationship with another woman.

The next description of love comes from Romeo, but this is before the time he met Juliet. According to his definition, love is pain, but he means the kind of love that isn't felt by both people. I suppose Romeo is both right and also wrong, because not returned love is painful to the heart, but Romeo doesn't truly love, as he is simply infatuated by a woman.

The next meaning of love comes from Juliet, before meeting Romeo; she didn't even have a definition of love. She seems to not know what love is, and, for that matter, does not seem to be concerned whatsoever. She remains unaware until she actually meets Romeo. Romeo and Juliet's love for each other also goes beyond one other thing: names. It shows that names don't matter. In our community the difference in names would be equal to two people of different races. The people would come from racist families in a modern day remake of the play. The final example of love in the play is parental love. This is shown in Act 5, scene 3 (Had to read on the internet for this essay, sorry). Lady Montague dies due to separation from Romeo. Capulet, Montague, Lady Capulet, and even the Nurse show that they love either Romeo or Juliet in this way as well.

In the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, countless types of love are shown. None of them are wrong, because the word "love" is a subject to interpretation, meaning that it's exact meaning is questionable, but it is obvious that Shakespeare did not have this in mind when he wrote the play. Shakespeare displays for us that the only type of love worth being in is "true love." He also shows us that, with all types of love, there is also all types of pain. If his objective was to influence the audience to believe that the only real love is the type of love that existed between Romeo and Juliet, I believe he accomplished this goal.

Fate plays a powerful role throughout the tale of Romeo and Juliet, a role of which none of the characters can compare with, witness this role as you observe the play (In my case, reading the play).

By: Clayton Polacco