Romeo And Juliet Impulsive Decisions Essay

Kiana Sanchez

Ms. Kitt/ Ms. Sanchez

English IH Period 1

Mar 6 2023

Shifting Emotions in The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet

Stieg Larsson, Swedish writer and activist, who is most recognized for his crime novels, once stated “Impulsive actions lead to trouble, and trouble could have unpleasant consequences.” However, what is not often taken into account are the emotions that drive people to act on their impulsivity. Believe it or not, emotions are a key principle to the speed at which people make their decisions, which can sometimes be harmful, especially if the emotions push the person to neglet basic logic. In William Shakespeare’s tragedy, “The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet,” the characters Romeo and Juliet are portrayed as “star-crossed lovers,”

However, that later changes throughout the course of the tragedy, for her strong emotions of love to grief also prompts her to make impulsive decisions that leads to her tragic fate. During the balcony scene, Juliet is conflicted on her feelings for Romeo, however, she falls into temptation and confesses her love to Romeo. Despite the fact that she had only known Romeo for a few hours, she consents to marrying Romeo: “And all my fortunes at thy foot I’ll lay And follow thee my lord throughout the world” (II.II.147-148). At this moment, Juliet is still trying to refrain from being completely in love with Romeo, for she asserts that it's either Romeo marries her or she will call off the relationship. Nonetheless, it is an important turning point in their relationship because Juliet’s quick and growing love for Romeo is what drives her to agree to marry him. Typically, in most relationships, couples take things slowly and will wait years until they decide they want to get married. More than likely, if Juliet had never met Romeo, she would also want to wait before she wants to get married. However, Romeo and Juliet take things very rapidly, for they marry a day later they make arrangements. Juliet follows along with the quick romance because the outcome for marrying Romeo seemed to have a better reward than if she were to not get married to Romeo. This is because Juliet is already scheduled to marry Paris in the near future, therefore to escape the pressure, she falls in love with Romeo. While making this decision, Juliet does not really acknowedge the consequences of her marrying a Montague. For instance, she does not recognize how news about their marriage will affect her family nor does she think about how she will hide the relationship. Consequently, she experiences a lot of tragic moments that causes her