What Is The Death Penalty In Romeo And Juliet Essay

The electric chair, lethal injection, firing squad, gas chamber, and even hanging are all ways to inflict what most humans fear the most: death.There are many ways to come upon this dreadful ending. This will be more specifically about the death penalty. The death penalty instils fear in those threatened, but in The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, it is not effective in stopping any violence. One of the first reason to why the death penalty does not put a stop to violence in Romeo and Juliet is that Romeo does not fear death. Soon after Romeo kills Tybalt the Prince says, “...Else, when he is found. That hour will be his last” (Shakespeare 1051). This is saying that if Romeo returns from his being banished that he will be punished through death, but Romeo is determined to get back to Juliet. When he returns to see Juliet again; he gets into a fight with Paris, and he slays him. In the words of Paris: “O, I am slain! [Falls]” (Shakespeare 1093). In this quote Paris is slain by Romeo. The selected quotes show that although Romeo is banished and threatened with death after the murder of Tybalt; he still has no hesitation to return to his wife. Romeo does not fear death, and because of this he commits a second murder. This time his victim was Paris.
A second reason to why the death penalty does not stop …show more content…
People in modern time may say, “America should no longer accept the myth that capital punishment play any constructive role in our criminal justice system,” (Top Ten Pros and Cons). In today’s society it may show that it is considered obsolete in stopping crime. Some of the same policies would apply to the story of Romeo and Juliet in showing that the threat of the death penalty did not stop any of the violence. Clearly, this proves that the opposition would be incorrect if they were to say that the death penalty stopped the fighting in the