For centuries, love has defined the actions of many and shaped the course of human history. William Shakespeare parallels history's pattern in his sorrow-filled play, Romeo and Juliet. Two youthful adolescents meet during a night of festivities and are quickly swept up in true love at first sight. They must fight to overcome their families conflict, so they can truly be with each other, but in their valiant effort, die due to a plan gone awry. William Shakespeare uses foreshadowing through this tumultuous play to convey how hasty love is fatal and clouds one's logical judgement.
Before Romeo and Juliet’s fateful encounter, Shakespeare provides a strong sense of foreshadowing which supports the theme that hasty love is fatal. As early as the …show more content…
Shakespeare bears no hesitation to foreshadow, for at only the lover’s second meeting Romeo bursts out saying “My life were better ended by their hate than death prorogued, wanting of thy love” (2.2.83-84). In continuance of this pattern, the passionate nature of this quote hides the solemn meaning of the foreshadowed filled line. When the audience hears Romeo saying he would rather die than be deprived of her love, they think that it is only the love-stricken ramblings of a hormonal teenager and do not comprehend the real meaning of this line, so to reinforce the foreshadowing, Shakespeare adds a subtle response to Romeo's line by using negatively connotated words such as “kill” (2.3.198), “ghostly” (2.3.204), and “cell” (2.3.206) throughout the end of the scene. Use of these words provides one with some foreshadowing, but not enough to bore one with plot spoilers. As the story continues, so does the foreshadowing, and the most powerful example lies with the most comedic character, Mercutio. Right before his death, Mercutio, in a fit of anger, declares “...a plague o’ both your houses!” (3.1.112). Many may interpret this as a dead man's regretful sputtering, but Shakespeare's true intentions were to foreshadow the ‘curse’ of Romeo’s death to the Montagues and Juliet’s death to the Capulets. Throughout the whole course of the story, Shakespeare provides enough evidence for the viewers to sense a dark and tragic end to the novel, but smartly placed it so that they were left in suspense and still affected by the heart wrenching and woeful end to this intricately sculpted play. The culmination of this literary device provides the ideal environment to convey how hasty love is fatal and clouds one’s ability to have logical