Love and Loss in Shakespear's Plays

In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the two lovers are separated by the feud between their two families. Romeo and Juliet meet at a party and plan to secretly get married with the help of Friar Laurence. Once the lovers are married Romeo has a brawl with Tybalt, the cousin of Juliet, and ends up murdering him and getting banished from Verona. Everyone gets the news of Romeo’s banishment as well as Tybalt’s death including Juliet that does not know how to feel because her new husband has just killed her cousin. Lord and Lady Capulet decide that to comfort Juliet in this time of grief she should be married to the Count, Paris. Juliet refuses to get married because she is married to Romeo and does not want to marry Paris if it is the last thing she does. Juliet goes to Friar Laurence and asks for assistance on what she should do about marrying Paris. The Friar comes up with a plan that he believes to be foolproof, that is not the case. The Friar plans to give Juliet a potion that will make is seem as if she has died, but in fact she will wake up after 48 hours. The Friar will also have a messenger go to Romeo in Mantua and tell him about the plan and to be in the Capulet tomb when Juliet awakes. This plan takes a spiral down hill when Lord Capulet decides to move the wedding day of Juliet and Paris a day earlier, causing Juliet to have to take the potion a day earlier than planned. Not giving enough time for the message to be delivered to Romeo that Juliet’s death has been staged. Romeo was not given the information in time, so his servant Balthazar delivered the news first, giving Romeo false information that Juliet’s death was not fake. This caused Romeo to immediately resort to suicide. He rushed to a local apothecary and got poison although it was illegal to purchase poison from an apothecary. Romeo then rushed over back to Verona to see Juliet in the Capulet tomb. There he stumbles upon Paris, Juliet’s soon to be “husband” they exchange few words and draw on each other. Romeo ends up slaying Paris and Romeo gets into the tomb to see Juliet. Romeo goes on to say how death took her life but did not touch her beauty. He then kills himself and dies next to Juliet. The irony

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