Futility Of Choices And Characterization Of Romeo
Why does everything Romeo do make you want to smash your head into a table? It’s because of his fatal flaw, his impulsiveness. His flaw makes him solve relatively simple situations in altogether questionable ways. Although his flaw was first revealed when he fought Tybalt, now impulsiveness is quite literally the death of him as he kills himself before the unbeknownst to him alive Juliet. His character sets itself up for dramatic irony and sarcasm.
In a word, Romeo is a tragically stupid character that lends himself to drama, irony, and facepalms due to his impulsive disposition. In his monologue, Romeo mentions when he murdered Tybalt without thinking of the consequences. (“Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet? O, what more favor can I do to thee, Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain. To sunder his that was thine enemy?
Forgive me, cousin!”) His impulsiveness leads him to make a decision that any logical person would avoid. It should have been clear that murdering someone from an opposing family of yours would lead to complications, but Romeo overlooks this and is then forced to leave Verona. His downfall, dying when Juliet is alive, is later triggered by his exile. The situation lends itself to situational irony as well, because what could have regained his honor forces him to lose what he had.
Also in his monologue, Romeo mentions that Juliet is his wife. (Line 1) Keep in mind, Romeo married her only a few days ago, and he had barely met her then. His obscene love for a girl he only met a day or two ago shows a large amount of impulsiveness to begin with. This reinforces his downfall by making sure that he felt so badly for Juliet that he would kill himself. Also reinforcing his downfall is their young age- Romeo and Juliet are only young teenagers and they are not fit to be marrying people in any way. The entire situation of their romance is full of situational irony as well because Romeo was head of heels in love with another girl only a couple days ago.
The last, and most poignant example of Romeo’s bad decision making is that he chose to kill himself before checking for a pulse. Juliet was highly unlikely to actually die in the days or hours leading to Romeo’s death. Omitting that a sensible person wouldn’t die over a short-term relationship, Juliet’s actual “death” was highly improbable. This example quite literally causes his downfall as he elects to die over a girl he was infatuated with, despite knowing her for less than a week. The situation is rife with dramatic irony as well, because everyone besides Romeo knew that Juliet was not dead.
The scene is one of the most important in the play: it shows the tragically idiotic downfall of Romeo as his collective bad decisions mount to form his death. Romeo’s impulsiveness leads to a decision that ends his life, and Juliet’s as a byproduct. This scene, gladly, ends the ridiculousness of Romeo and Juliet to create a symbolic end to the play. Both character’s flaws, however avoidable, create a situation that ends the feud between the Montagues and Capulets.
