Romeo and Juliet: Lust vs. Love, Which Triumphs?

Romeo and Juliet, written by William Shakespeare tells the tragic story of two teen star-crashes lovers from rivaling families that must keep their love a secret. However, with only a week to fall in love and experience the truth wonders of it who’s to say their actions weren't driven by lust. The play often shows that Romeo and Juliet both are inexperienced at love and are driven by wanting it, more than having it.

            Firstly, at the start of the play we see Romeo, who tells Benvolio he is out of love with Rosaline after their break-up. Romeo proves to be heart broken by the fact that their "love" has ended and says “Out of her favor, where I am in love`" (1.1.173). However shortly after he his break up with Rosaline, Romeo attends the Capulets party and is breath-taken by Juliet's beauty and claims he has fallen in love with her, with having spoken a single word to her. However, love, unlike lust, is an emotion that takes time to grow and develop with the relationship. Romeo, doesn't know what love is and confuses it with strong affections towards her beauty. Even the Friar is surprised when he comes to him declaring he wishes to marry Juliet, being only Juliet as well, doesn't know much about love, being as her parents have always picked out the men she must "love". Juliet, in the sense beings to take a liking in Romeo because he younger and probably what Juliet wants instead of these older men. Both Romeo and Juliet have things they want to forget about and the fact that they both take a linking in each other is why they believe they are in love.

            Also, Romeo and Juliet both in some way bring up the idea of marriage only one day into the relationship, however, Juliet is the first to actually mention marriage when she says “Thy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow,/by one that I'll procure to come to thee”.(2.2.144-145).  Romeo does in fact say to send for him so he can arrange the details. He then arrives to Friar Lawrence’s cell and he agrees to marry them, but not without saying “these violent delights have violent endings”.(2.6.9). This line can be interpreted many ways, but I like to see it has the Friar warning Romeo and Juliet that having known each other for a day and committing to love at such a young age and early time in the relationship is dangerous and they should wait and see how the “love” they feel progresses, because it could be that if Romeo had seen a pretty women, in the sense, there’s no saying he wouldn’t fall in love her, the same way it happened with Juliet. As well as that, the phrase “violent delights” refers to the intense speed Romeo and Juliet seem to be rushing things instead of letting love grow and take its natural course. Instead they intervene and let their wants get in the way.

The Friar himself married Romeo and Juliet simply hoping to end the feud between their families. But, their marriage happened because they had strong affections for each other, but having only spent half a day together they don’t know each other well enough to get married, let alone be in love.

Lastly, Romeo, while with Benvolio expresses his love for Rosaline in the quote “She hath Dian’s wit/And, in strong proof of chastity well armed/From love’s weak childish bow, she lives uncharmed./She will not stay the siege of loving terms,/Nor bide th' encounter of assailing eyes,/Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold.” (1.1.200-206). He compliments her on al her strengths, however all them seem to be the reasons their love isn’t mutual. Seemingly after venting to Benvolio about how he loves Rosaline and the love is unrequited, Romeo, nearly 24 hours later is engaged to be married to Juliet who he claims he loves as much even more. The only thing wrong with this is that the two of them have had nearly no time to get to know each other, who they really are and what they really want, they both seem to think that just because this feeling they have is mutual, it is love, but that doesn’t always prove true.

Had the message gotten to Romeo of Friar and Juliet’s plan there is almost a guarantee that running away to be with each other would not have benefited either of them in the long run.  Romeo mainly acts on the feeling of lust and just pure impulse and Juliet seems to always trust that with Romeo everything will be alright and perfect. Neither of the two are experienced at love and seem to easily confuse it with other feelings they have. Though some might say that Juliet offering to no longer be a Capulet during the balcony scene an both Romeo and Juliet dyeing to be with the other in the afterlife proves that they were actually in love, but once again they both seem to be acting on the fact that they think that the world without the the isn’t a world they’d like to live in, but we can tell for Romeo this wouldn’t be true based on how he was able to move so fast from Rosaline to Juliet. Just like that he could’ve done the same thing with the next girl he sees.

Finally, with every move and decision Romeo and Juliet make they seems to be blinded by what they would both like to have rather than what they do have. They are both just confused teenagers that act impulsively and on lust because of how easy it is to confuse it with love.