#5

How far should one take their individual desires?

Society as a whole is only reestablished after both Romeo and Juliet, the individualists, are dead. However, this new reestablishment is more stable than before in that it the feuding between the Capulets and Monteguts have been put aside. The individuals that fought out for what they believe in made a change in the way society was run. Did they ‘win’?, They could only find what the wanted when it was too late, but it did however make a shift in the way the society would work there on out. Love was the way they individuated themselves from the confines of society. One’s freedom will always outweigh anything else. In Albert Camus’s Notebooks he notes, “In ancient drama, the one who pays is always the one who is right—Prometheus, Oedipus, Orestes, etc.”
Romeo wants love. Juliet wants love. This desire will withstand all—tromping family, disobeying society, and without it, the only other option is not live at all. Is it better to follow one’s individual desires even if their family and their community/society says it is wrong? How far can one’s own gut or desires be trusted?

Along with this deep-set desire in Romeo, we also see the death of a former desire for a new one in the Chorus: “now old desire doth in his deathbed lie…” in replacement for “young affection gapes to be his heir” which presents his new love for Juliet over his affection to Rosaline. One desire has replaced another.  While his love for Juliet is said to be stronger, this swift switch raises questions of temporary versus permanence in desire – how can one trust them?

Friar Lawrence is an important weighted figure in the play. He also goes against these manmade rules, seemingly not for himself, for Romeo and Juliet though his true intentions seem to be a little unclear. He is the dominating religious figure who marries them, but also who, whether indirectly or directly, brings them to their demise by staging the poison. The friar desires to do what is ‘right’ in his eyes along with quell the problems in Verona.

Though the story uses love as its variable, it has much more to do with forbidden or individual wants than marriage or young/first love. Author Andre Gide, is quoted “The great danger is to let oneself be monopolized by a fixed idea.”

Shakespeare shows that the framework of society should constantly be questioned; constantly open, and that change can be a good and necessary agent.