Is The Play Romeo And Juliet Still Relevant To Modern Society?
Romeo and Juliet shows the hurry of falling into love and to experience that feeling. Shakespeare uses foreshadowing in Romeo and Juliet to make it relevant to our modern day Audience. The themes that are in the play are themes that many people enjoy. Romeo and Juliet is still a great play and have impacted dramatically on the contemporary audiences. In Romeo and Juliet there are many themes, themes that truly bring out the modern day audiences. Love, arguing with parents, friendship, religion, rivalry and destiny. All these themes are still very common to this day. For example, love. it is stated that love is one of the most entertaining theme for the audience.
Love is one of the main concepts of Romeo and Juliet and nowadays love is what most movies and plays consist of. “ ‘O’ Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo(act 2, scene 2)” this quote has been heard from many different people and that is evidence that Romeo and Juliet are still important to peoples lives. Many of the movies and stories that we have in our modern world have been influenced by Romeo and Juliet which again is also evidence that the play is still impactful. People like you want to rush into love and to just experience it, yeah well that sounds a lot like Romeo and Juliet don’t you think? we all learn valuable lessons. Like the quote from Virgil “love conquers all and we all should not be fooled by discrimination and hate”. Forbidden love, now we know one thing for a fact and that is Forbidden love was around when Romeo and Juliet was first written and it still is around now and for generations to come. The modern world is still separated in terms of religion and race.
Our society and religion are still having similar experiences with what Romeo and Juliet went through. Whether is arranged marriages, marriage because of money or forced marriages by parents all those events are still happening. Juliet was forced to Marry Paris and if she didn’t she had consequences as Lord Capulet said” If you do not marry Paris Thursday never speech to me again” just like in Africa forced marriages still happen and can be coupled off to much older and richer men. Todays audience may agree with Juliet’s first decision to not marry Paris as they feel its wrong for the parents to do that against Juliet. but then on the other hand we have the people that may agree with the parents decision and they see the decision as protection and to give Juliet happiness.
Love, family conflict, friendship, arguing with parents rivalry and destiny are themes that Shakespeare included into Romeo and Juliet. Directors in our modern days have included Shakespeare’s well-recognized themes into something else that is more relevant. Changing the play into something that was written in the 16th century into an event that could happen to anyone which makes it more dependable for our modern day society. ”Deny thy father and refuse thy name, or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and ill no longer be a Capulet”(act 2 scene 2) The family rivalry of the Capulets and Montagues had been going on for ages and when Romeo and Juliet feel in love with each other it created a major problem. Two families and their hatred for each other costed them both the most important things to them. Our young society are all about doing the things they are supposed to do, they do things which is what they think is “livin”, but it is?
Romeo and Juliet are around 426 years old, although it is old, Romeo and Juliet still have a big impact on our modern day society. The human behaviour has not changed through out the ages. The rivalry and love, experiences and arranged marriages, which often ends in tragedy, are for sure part of todays world. Even though Romeo and Juliet had been written hundreds of years ago, it is a story that will never be retold for generations to come.
