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Romeo's Impulsive Character

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Romeo's Impulsive Character
William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is a tragic love story based in Verona in the 1500s. A feud between the Montagues and Capulets has waged on for generations and generations. There is only one child from both these houses; Romeo is the only child from the Montagues and Juliet is the only child from the Capulets. Ironically, Romeo and Juliet fall in love and, due to fear of their family’s hatred for each other, get married in secret. Their secret, forbidden love ends when Romeo and Juliet commit suicide. Romeo is the protagonist, heir to Montague and tragic hero in this play. He is a passionate and impulsive character that makes him perfect for his part.
Because of his passionate character, Romeo throws himself into whatever emotion he's
…show more content…
His spontaneous nature is seen in all his emotions. Romeo goes from obsessing over Rosaline and nothing in the world being able to replace her to being madly in love with Juliet in mere minutes because of his impulsive nature. A few minutes after seeing Juliet for the first time in his life, Romeo decides to marry her that very day. He does not want to wait at all and he would marry her right there if he could. His hastiness then leads him to Friar Lawrence to beg him to marry them. Throughout his conversation with Friar Lawrence, the Friar brings up many good points as to why Romeo and Juliet should wait to get married but Romeo does not care about what anyone else thinks and keeps telling the Friar that he wants to get married to Juliet as soon as possible, which we can see when he says “... but this I pray, That thou consent to marry us today.” (II, iii, 59-60). Romeo’s impulsiveness is evident throughout his relationship with Juliet and we can also see it in many other aspects of the …show more content…
Romeo fights and kills Tybalt just because Tybalt slays Mercutio, despite knowing the consequence of fighting -death- he still takes it upon himself as a way to seek repentance for Mercutio’s death. He is able to restrain himself before the death of Mercutio but after his death Romeo falls to his impulsiveness and fights Tybalt. After killing Tybalt and getting banishment instead of a death sentence, Romeo refuses to look on the bright side and goes to Friar Lawrence where he says “Ha, banishment! Be merciful, say ‘death’.” (III, iii, 12), this shows that he deems that life without Juliet is a life not worth living. He then continues to weep and decides to take his own life, the Friar stops him but had Romeo stopped being so quick to make decisions he would have realised banishment is better than death and would be rejoicing instead of weeping. Romeo hears about Juliet's “death” from his servant Balthasar and he instantly decides to kill himself, he doesn't mourn his loss or even cry, he simply buys poison, rides to Verona and kills himself. Had he spoken to anyone, taken any advice or sat down and thought about what had happened then he would realize that suicide is not the answer but he had his mind made in a minute, he wanted to be dead with his wife. Romeo’s nature of making decisions without thinking or barely thinking at all is shown at many key parts in the story and leads to his

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