Teenage Love in Romeo and Juliet Essay Sample

In William Shakespeare's story Romeo and Juliet, two star-crossed lovers named Romeo and Juliet take their lives, ending their love adventure. Shakespeare explores the issue of youthful love and concludes that when teenagers make hasty and immature decisions, they can have fatal results which are shown through the actions and dialogues of Romeo, Juliet, and Friar Lawrence. 

First of all, Romeo and Juliet decide to marry so swiftly after meeting that it has only been a few hours since they met. As Romeo prepares to leave after their second secret meeting in Juliet's balcony, she says, "Three words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed, If that thy bent of love be honorable, Thy purpose marriage, send me word tomorrow By one that I'll procure to come to thee Where and what time thou wilt perform the rite, And all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay And follow thee my lord throughout the world” (2.2. 142-148). This phrase demonstrates that Romeo and Juliet rush into their marriage. The phrase "tomorrow" indicates that they are attempting to marry in less than 24 hours after meeting. This idea of quick marriage shows that both of them are immature as according to an article, “The Seven Most Prevalent Causes of Faulty Mate Selection,” it states that, “They simply need more life experiences.” (1.2). This highlights that youngsters simply do not spend enough time with one other to choose them as their life partner. Moving on, the phrase, “And all my fortunes at thy foot I’ll lay And follow thee my lord throughout the world, “ implies that she is willing to give all of her fortunes to Romeo and leave her family to live with him. All while Juliet is not even 14 years old, and contemplating leaving her family, who has cared for and sheltered her up to this point. Juliet's insane notions are the result of impulsive and immature decisions for the sake of their love.

Furthermore, these youngsters make decisions based on faulty reasoning, which appears to make their decisions immature. This is demonstrated when Friar Lawrence, one of the wisest men, suggests that teenage love is too fleeting and not true love, stating to Romeo, “So soon forsaken? Young men’s love then lies not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.” (2.3. 67-68) Young men love with their eyes, not their hearts, as this statement explains. "So soon forsaken?" emphasizes the fact that Romeo, who loved Rosaline before meeting Juliet, now loves Juliet solely because she looks better than Rosaline. This illustrates Romeo's erratic and desultory nature. He quickly forgets about someone and falls in love with someone even more gorgeous, all within a few minutes. Moving on, the statement “Young men’s love then lies not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes,” implies that Romeo is solely interested in women's attractiveness while deciding whether or not to love them. This means that Romeo is blinded by beauty and ignores the woman's characteristics in order to fall in love with her. This demonstrates that these youngsters' love is solely based on their appearance and not on their experiences. These notions of adolescent love are linked to the immature and hasty decisions they make for a variety of crazy reasons.

To summarize, most teenage love ends up in a way they don't want it to because of their lack of experiences together and their lust, which causes them to make snap judgments for illogical reasons, making them puerile.