Title: Romeo and Juliet: Are Romeo and Juliet really in love? | SparkNotes
Headings: Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
William Shakespeare
Are Romeo and Juliet really in love?
Romeo and Juliet SparkNotes Literature Guide
Popular pages: Romeo and Juliet
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Plot Analysis MAIN IDEAS
Are Romeo and Juliet really in love? MAIN IDEAS
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Content: She is unenthusiastic about her parents’ choice of husband for her, and at the party where she is supposed to meet Paris, she instead kisses Romeo after exchanging just fourteen lines of dialogue with him. When Romeo returns to see Juliet, she is focused on marriage. For Juliet, part of the appeal of marriage is that it will free her from her parents: “ I’ll no longer be a Capulet” (2.2.). She compares Romeo to a tame falcon—a “tassel-gentle” (2.2.)—which suggests that she believes she can control him. Juliet’s love for Romeo seems at least in part to be a desire to be freed from her parents’ control by a husband who can’t control her either. More experienced characters argue that sexual frustration, not enduring love, is the root cause of Romeo and Juliet’s passion for one another. Mercutio tells Romeo “this drivelling love is like a great natural that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole” (2.4.). Every time Romeo tries to demonstrate the seriousness of his love, Mercutio undermines him with sexual jokes. When Romeo risks returning to the Capulets’ house to see Juliet again, Mercutio calls after him that he is just sexually frustrated: “