Introduction
Romeo and Juliet is a play written by William Shakespeare, and the main characters are Juliet and Romeo. They both fall in love despite the hatred between their families (Montague and Capulet). The hostility between their households makes love between Juliet and Romeo end in despair, whereby both of them die. Shakespeare uses various figurative language like personification, similes, metaphor, and others to explain the theme of love in this play. He brings all those elements together to support this theme. Love is the most important and central theme in Romeo and Juliet. This paper discusses various techniques and language used by Shakespeare to explore the theme of love in Romeo and Juliet.
Using of Imagery
Shakespeare uses the imagery of light and dark to portray the love and destiny of Romeo and Juliet. Love is contrasted against death, and it is also linked to sight and appearances. Romeo and Juliets love is blind, their first meeting is at a dance party, where Romeo's face is covered with a mask 'antic face' at that moment, Romeo doesn’t know who Juliet is. So, in this case, their meeting is love at first sight. Romeo had not seen true beauty until that night “never spotted true beauty until this night” (Act one, Scene five), and this portrays their love depended on sight.
Additionally, there is an occurring theme in the play of disparity dark and light images. Shakespeare uses these images frequently concerning morning and day. At the dance party, Romeo's initial confession to Juliet was ‘she has taught the torches to ignite brightly.' Juliet, the 'fair sun' will always be identified with brightness, according to Romeo. In Juliet's case, she associates Romeo to 'be screening in the night' with darkness and the moon. At dawn, after the night of the wedding, they both debate on dark and light. They can prolong their stay together only if it is dark. Seeing as "lark, of the morn: no nightingale", the light does separate them. Light let out and display, and before the light can review the truths and actuality of their relationships, they involuntarily separate. Light and dark do not coexist, showing that their love cannot be sustained in real life.
Character Language
Shakespeare uses the character language to demonstrate the theme of love. The language is utilized to illustrate the passionate feelings that the character tries to express. The choice of words is used to differentiate the types of love between Juliet and Romeo as extraordinary love. When Juliet talks about Romeo the audience can feel that he loves him with her whole heart and soul “Although I have acquired the palace of love, I am yet to own it, and although I am sold, I so far not enjoyed it" this shows the loyalty Juliet has for Romeo.
Additionally, another design that is associated with the titillating side of lovers’ passion is Juliet and Romeo frequent use of language methods like alliteration and repetition when talking to each other. Romeo says" O sin from my lips? Trespass sweetly urged" that specific selection of the language method has a fascinating effect on the audience. The alteration is soft and fleshy, the thoughts of seduction. "Yet every utterance of the young lovers is bubbling with emotion; as it excites, it exalts as well." Juliet and Romero still manage to portray that their passion for each other outweighs any other character.
Metaphor
Shakespeare uses religious metaphor to describe the love between Juliet and Romeo. Romeo calls himself a sinner, besides says that Juliet is a shrine (act 1, scene 5, line 106).In their first encounter, Romeo says ' Touching her makes my rude hand blessed'. In a religious path to a priest or a saint's relic, Romeo compares oneself with only a nomad. He likened Juliet to the saint. He goes on to say that his finger is unfit to hold this "holy shrine" as a nomad could also experience once nearing a saint. In comparison to such holy figures, Romeo creates both their religion.
Consequently, Juliet considers Romeo as ‘the god of my righteousness’. Disregards and substitute’s god as well as the Christian belief for a new. Roméo has now become her god; she is really to honour and pray Shakespeare used religion to describe love because Christians believe that the lack of god's presence can lead to suffering, just like how Romeo believes that pain of banishment will occur if Juliet is not in his life 'Heaven is here Where Juliet lives'. However, as the play comes to its conclusion religious faith "requires objectives that Juliet and Romeo could not recognize due to the extremely intense nature of one's affection", and as such, they consider dying to avoid the problems formed through their unchecked emotions.
Shakespeare uses the technique of foreshadowing in Romeo and Juliet to be a warning or indicate a love that is bound to be a tragedy. He calls them “star-crossed lovers” which predicts that their love is doomed to fail. Juliet is correct when she claims that their love' Too rush, too unadvised and too sudden' (act 2, scene 2) this exactly describes their love and its downfall. The ongoing family struggles and the ill-advice from the trusted advisor of Romeo, Friar Lawrence contributes to the increment of love and tragedy. An example is when Friar tells Romeo "Youthful lovelies, not really in one‘s hearts, however in one‘s eyes,.’ (Act 3 Scene 2). The scene indicates misinformation on Friar's part. If Juliet and Romeo were a little bit older, they would have been able to make the right call themselves without being misled by Frier and would have avoided the tragedy that occurred to them, and thus their love would have blossomed.
Additionally, the love between Juliet and Romeo is forceful has narrated by Shakespeare. For example, when Juliet's father plans to wed her Paris, she says 'If everything else fails, I have the power to die.'(Act 3, scene 5). It portrays how Juliet and Romeo were in love that she would consider death before marrying anyone else that was not Romeo. The power of their passion is fully demonstrated towards the end of the play when Juliet commits suicide after hearing the news about Romeo death.
Conclusion
William Shakespeare uses various techniques in Romeo and Juliet's story to provide a special meaning of love by using religious metaphor, foreshadowing, language conversations, and dark and light imagery. The methods describe the importance, reasons and effect of the love of the two characters in a specific way for audience understanding. Shakespeare wanted to show how boundless love can positively or negatively consume us. For instance, he uses the religious metaphor brilliantly to portray the theme of love, describing that Juliet loved Romeo so much that he considered him the 'god of my idolatry.' clearly showing how the two were in love. Juliet kills herself when she hears that Romeo is dead. Several examples foreshadowed Juliet and Romeo tragedy that befalls them. The feud between the two families should have been enough to warn them that their love would not end well. He describes them as star crossed lover’s indicating that their love was doomed to fail.
