Tuesday, October 22, 2013

What went through Romeo's mind when he died? Juliet's when she found him? Do you think that if she had lived she would have fell in love again?

Romeo was raging with many different emotions when he drank the poison. He laments the death of Tybalt, & questions why Juliet looks so alive still. Of course, it's because she is alive, but Romeo doesn't know that, & instead speculates that Death (in personified form) has kept her as his mistress. In fear of this, Romeo vows to stay with Juliet, and continues:


"Eyes, look your last!
Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death!(115)
Come, bitter conduct; come, unsavoury guide!
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy seasick weary bark!
Here's to my love! Drinks. O true apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die."


In his last moment, he fills his senses, and steels himself against death. The fact that he dies "with a kiss" also suggests that he's still thinking of Juliet.


Juliet is thinking much along the same lines. She frets that Romoe has not left enough poison on his lips, & when she hears the watchmen approaching, she takes his dagger and stabs herself, saying "This is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die." Thus both think of each other as they die.


I'd like to think that Juliet would love again if she had lived. After all, she was only 13, and it would be difficult to believe that, being so incredibly young, she would not have found love again. Even Romeo loved before Juliet; it's quite feasible she could have loved after him. Of course, she may have found her life full of hardships, as her father had already disowned her  and she would have to answer for her actions. So perhaps she would have entered a nunnery, or been forced to flee.

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