Wednesday, January 1, 2014

I need a thesis statement about how Romeo and Juliet are infatuated with each other and I have to somehow connect it to this monologue? The thesis...

This monologue is spoken by Juliet after she has found out Romeo killed her cousin Tybalt. Here she is questioning how Romeo can appear so beautiful and wonderful, yet be capable of something as vile as murder. She is confused and has conflicting feelings about him. This monologue shows a common theme in a lot of literature, plays, TV shows, movies, and more. Does beauty equal goodness and does ugliness equal evil? In some literature and movies an evil witch may be presented as being ugly and that is one indicator that she is evil. Either she was born this way or perhaps her evil ways have caused her beauty to wither away. The hero or damsel who needs saving is usually presented as being beautiful. You could argue that in the past and even today, there is a belief that God would never curse a “good” person to be ugly. There is this idea that our outside reflects our heart inside. Sometimes though, the evil character is presented as very beautiful because it is meant to confuse and unsettle you. Someone who is very beautiful can use that to their advantage to deceive and manipulate because many people trust a beautiful face, like Juliet has done with Romeo. In this monologue Juliet is questing why and how Romeo can be so beautiful but do such a horrible thing. She uses oxymorons to describe Romeo and also fears his beautiful appearance is nothing but a mask hiding his true self. She says things like “a beautiful Tyrant”, “field angelical”, “a damned saint”, and “an honorable villain.” These are all oxymorons. Juliet also questions if Romeo is sent to deceive her from Hell. She wonders if perhaps his beauty was given by hell to disguise his true evil self. She says “O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell,/ When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend/In moral paradise of such sweet flesh?” The whole idea that someone could be evil and so beautiful on the outside is baffling to her and most likely contrary to everything she has been taught. Essentially you could argue that Juliet originally believed Romeo to be a good man based solely on his beauty. Shakespeare could be trying to show us through this monologue that 1. You can’t judge a book by its cover and 2. Perhaps people are more complicated than just being simply good or evil. Juliet’s confusion, conflicting feelings, and use of oxymorons to describe Romeo show us that humans are complicated. Just like Juliet feels conflicted, perhaps it is possible that Romeo is still a “good person” even though he has committed murder. So in short you could write something along the lines of: In Juliet’s monologue O serpent heart, William Shakespeare shows us that you cannot always judge a person’s intentions by their outwardly appearance and physical beauty does not necessarily equal goodness.

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