Romeo and Juliet are alike in being young people who fall quickly and passionately in love, are impatient to get married, and are willing to ignore the feud between their families to be together. Both would rather die than be apart.
Romeo, however, is much more in love with the idea of being in love than Juliet is. This makes him, therefore, the less constant of the two characters. Romeo starts off the play, for example, pining for Rosaline, who refuses to return his love. It's for this reason that his two friends, Benvolio and Mercutio, drag him to the Capulet party: they hope he will meet a girl who will take his mind off Rosaline. Romeo insists there can be no other woman in the world for him but Rosaline; then, almost comically, he falls in love with Juliet the moment he sets eyes on her.
Juliet has no similar history of love. She is willing, coolly, to entertain the idea of marrying Paris , but Romeo appear to be the first person she has ever fallen head over heels in love with (after all,...
(The entire section contains 4 answers and 1200 words.)
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