Romeo and Juliet Group

Question:

user21
user21
Student
College - Freshman

What does Romeo and Juliet teach us about identity?

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Posted by user21 on Monday November 26, 2007 at 3:29 AM and tagged with identity, themes.


Answers:


  1. sullymonster Teacher
    Community / Jr. College

    In Romeo and Juliet, the characters are judged on account of their names.  The Montagues hate the Capulets, and vice versa.  It doesn't matter what a person is really like, only what their name is.

    However, the characters of Romeo and Juliet challenge this.  Their love shows that they do not connect identity with name.  In one of Shakespeare's most famous quotes, Juliet says the following:

    "What's in a name?/a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

    This demonstrates that identity is a result of define charactersitics about the person himself, and not tied into the name - or even the background - of that person.

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    Posted by sullymonster on Monday November 26, 2007 at 5:53 AM

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