Conflict Of Love And Hate In Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet

The tragedy of Romeo & Juliet (1595) is a play written by William Shakespeare, in which the eponymous protagonists’ families are involved in a long-running feud. This conflict between the two families, the Montagues and the Capulets along with destiny culminates in the inevitable deaths of these ‘star-cross’d lovers’ Therefore, Romeo and Juliet’s love shall always be overshadowed by hatred, thus meaning that the play revolves around the conflict of love and hate. This conflict is strongly evident in Act 3 Scene 5, where Juliet’s parents are attempting to make her marry Count Paris, who also dies because of Romeo & Juliet’s love. However, Juliet resists her parents pressure as she is already married to Romeo. This, therefore, results in an inter-family conflict, as Capulet is enraged that Juliet dares to disobey him. This is a drastic change from his loving attitude towards her earlier in …show more content…
His use of directive phrases in ‘fettle your fine joints ‘gainst Thursday next’ and the triplet ‘speak not, reply not, do not answer me’ indicate that he expects ultimate obedience as he is in an Elizabethan patriarchal society, and has no intention of listening to his daughter. He also threatens her when he says, ‘Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither’ and ‘or never after look me in the face’. His comparison to Juliet of a common criminal and the powerful verb ‘drag’ show his disgust at being challenged by his daughter, and threatening to disown her furthers that opinion. He also insults her, most notably with the metaphor ‘green-sickness carrion’, referring to a pale corpse. The fact that he is insulting her in this extremely graphic way showcases a drastic change from his attitude to Juliet earlier in the play, when she was beloved by her father. It implies that this conflict may never be resolved