Romeo and Juliet: Reversals, Contraries, Transformations, and Ambivalence
Author(s): Stephen A. Shapiro
Source: College English , Apr., 1964, Vol. 25, No. 7 (Apr., 1964), pp. 498-501
Published by: National Council of Teachers of English
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Romeo and Juliet:
Reversals, Contraries, Transformations, and Ambivalence
STEPHEN A. SHAPIRO
ACT II, SCENE VI, and Act III, scene corporate
i, two feuding families into one
constitute the geographical center peaceful
of commonwealth.
Romeo and Juliet. The former scene endsAct III opens with Mercutio upbraid-
with Friar Laurence hurrying to "in- ing the peaceful Benvolio for being a hot
corporate two in one," to marry Romeoman to quarrel. The contrary of this
and Juliet. The latter scene embracessituation is immediately asserted when
Romeo's slaying of Tybalt, an act which
Tybalt enters. Mercutio responds to Ty-
divides the lovers just as they are be-
balt's "a word with one of you," with
coming united. Both scenes embody"make it a word and a blow." Then
ironic or dramatic reversals. By con-Romeo enters, encountering Tybalt's
centrating on the reversals in these twohate with its contrary, love. But shortly
scenes, I believe that much can be learned
thereafter, Romeo's love is transformed
about both the structure and the meaninginto its opposite by Tybalt's murder of
of the entire play. Mercutio-a deathblow delivered under
By the end of Act II Friar Laurence,
Romeo's peacemaking arm. It is im-
despite his counsel of moderation, portant
is to note that Mercutio dies be-
forced to "make short work" of the
cause he willingly involves himself in
marriage of Romeo and Juliet. Thus, the feud between the Montagues and
despite his knowledge that "they stumblethe Capulets. However, after he is
that run fast" (II.iii.94),1 the Friar be- by Tybalt, he three times cries,
stabbed
gins to run, becomes involved in"A the
plague o' both your houses!" And his
relentless acceleration of events, acts dying gasp is "-your houses!"
contrary to the way in which he would It is not accidental that Mercutio's
choose to act. He exits with Romeo and
outcries come at the exact center of the
Juliet, who are ecstatic over "this dear
encounter." The Friar's final words, "two
play. "A plague o' both your houses!"
is both a judgment and a prophecy, as
in one," are left hanging in the air at the
end of the scene. The next scene contra- well as a curse. Through the repetition
of this line Mercutio rises almost physi-
dicts these words by ending with cally above the action of the play. And
Romeo's banishment. But the words will
as this line sounds and resounds, one be-
have complex reverberations. For though
gins to realize that the whole play pivots
Romeo and Juliet are divided, they be-
on it. For up to Mercutio's death Romeo
come reunited, and their deaths in-
and Juliet is a romantic comedy. After
it, it becomes a tragedy. The comic
1Romeo and Juliet, in The Tragedies of
Shakespeare (London, Oxford University brawl
Press, that opened the play has been
1924). All future references will be to this transformed by death. And as Romeo
text.
realizes, "This day's black fate on more
days doth depend;/This but begins the
Mr. Shapiro is a predoctoral associate in the
woe others must end" (III.i.118-119).
Department of English, University of Wash-
A moment later, Romeo kills Tybalt,
ington. His main field of interest is the psycho-
analytic interpretation of literature. and is exiled. The Romeo that begged
498
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ROMEO AND JULIET 499
and contrasts
Tybalt and Mercutio to De tound in Romeo
to "forbear and
this
outrage" has committed
Juliet, no onethat
has as yetoutrage.
attempted to ex-
Like Friar Laurence,plore who counsels
their function in termsslow-
of the total
ness, like Mercutio, who counselled meaning of the play.
peace, Romeo has advised one thing and It is my contention that the play
enacted its opposite. The pressure of"means" primarily through its contraries
events forces all three men to reverse and contradictions. One is virtually
themselves. But do these contraries func- forced to this conclusion, for either/or
tion within the pattern of a larger series interpretations tend to be unsatisfactory
of reversals and transformations? The
because they ignore large sections of the
"Prologue" indicates that they do. play. H. L. Mencken was perhaps the
From forth the fatal loins of these two first to suggest that Romeo and Juliet is
foes a grotesque parody of romantic love. It
is undeniable that elements of parody are
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their
life; to be found in the play-such as the
Whose misadventur'd piteous over- exaggerated "0, 0, O" grief patterns in
throws
Act IV, scene v, and perhaps even
Do with their death bury their par- Juliet's melodramatic soliloquy on her
ents' strife.
forthcoming immolation. But one cannot
The play seems to be governed by the ignore the fact that, as is witnessed by
sacrificial deaths of Romeo and Juliet all of Shakespeare's comedies, Shake-
which reverse their parents' hate. speare did not believe that romantic love
was absurd, but rather that it could have
On another level, the language of the
play deals in contraries, as Romeo's a kind of religious value. At the same
"Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, time, however, one cannot go to the
sick health" speech (I.i.181) attests. other extreme and simply affirm that
Juliet also explores contraries, calling Romeo and Juliet are heroic figures. For
Romeo: the elements of parody cannot be ig-
nored. Romeo and Juliet are immature,
Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!
even absurd in their immaturity-as wit-
Dove-feather'd raven! wolfish-ravening
lamb! ness Romeo "There on the ground ...
Despised substance of divinest show! Blubbering and weeping, weeping and
blubbering" (III.iii.82, 86). When Friar
Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st;
A damned saint, an honourable villain! Laurence criticizes Romeo: "Art thou a
(III.ii.75-79) man? . . . Thy tears are womanish . . .
(III.iii.108-109), one can only agree with
Caroline Spurgeon has documented the him. And there is something about the
fact that "each of the lovers thinks of
love of these two adolescents that is even
the other as light,"2 that Shakespearemore
in ambiguous than their immaturity.
Romeo and Juliet conceives of love as
The "Prologue" tells us that the love
the light in a dark world. And W. H. of Romeo and Juliet is "death-mark'd"-
Clemen has commented on contrasting
presumably because of the enmity of
patterns of imagery in Romeo and
their parents and the disposition of the
Juliet.3 But, though many critics have
remarked about the various contraries stars. But, though fortune plays a key
role in this drama, Shakespeare also con-
ceives of fate in terms of character. One
2"The Imagery of Romeo and Juliet," Shake- of the first things we learn about Romeo
speare: Modern Essays in Criticism, ed. is that he
Leonard F. Dean (New York, 1961), p. 73.
3The Development of Shakespeare's Imagery Shuts up his windows, locks fair day-
(New York, 1951), p. 68. light out,
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5'00, COLLEGE ENGLISH
And makes himself
operatesan artificial
not only night
to destroy Romeo and
Black and portentous must
Juliet but also this
to reconcile humo
the Montagues
prove ..
and Capulets. Thus Friar Laurence's
(I.i.140-142) lines:
Even before he meets Juliet, Romeo The earth that's nature's mother is her
seeks darkness. And his misgiving that tomb;
his "despised life" will end in "untimely What is her burying grave that is her
womb . . .
death" (I.iv.111, 112) is certainly more
immediately connected to his character, (II.iii.9-10)
his desire to die, than to any medieval with their sense of harmonized con-
tradition. Shakespeare has anticipated one traries, may provide a "key" to the
of the most paradoxical and profound in- meaning of the play. They certainly
sights of psychoanalysis: a man is as symbolize the action of the play. The
much responsible for what is done to parents of the lovers are in a sense their
him as for what he does. Fortune, what tomb. But out of the tomb of the lovers,
happens to one, and fate, what one is, reconciliation, if not new life, is born.
fuse. The "plague" that Mercutio wishes on
Is it not strange that when Romeo first the two houses becomes actualized as the
arrived in Mantua, before he heard of deaths of Romeo and Juliet, but becomes
Juliet's death, he thought of deadly partially transformed into a kind of bless-
poisons (V.i.50-53)? Is it not disturbing ing. However, the disproportion be-
that Juliet, after hearing of Romeo's tween what has been gained and what
banishment, resolves: lost may indicate that there is irony in
I'll to the friar, to know his remedy: the reconciliation scene.
If all else fail, myself have power to die, This ambiguous and perhaps unsatisfy-
(III.v.241-242) ing scene returns us to the ambiguous
nature of the love shared or indulged in
instead of resolving to find Romeo and
live? One begins to suspect that when by the protagonists. By suggesting that
Romeo and Juliet desire to die, I am
Juliet threatens the friar: "I long to
die,/If what thou speak'st speak not of
not necessarily concluding that this
remedy" (IV.i.66-67), she longs more makes them simply an object of satire.
The desire for perfect love, or perfect
for death than for remedy.
anything else, is fundamentally an un-
However, one cannot quite conclude realizable one-in life as we know it. But
that when Romeo kills Tybalt, honor-
the desire for an endless and perfect
ably revenging Mercutio's death, and
cries "O! I am Fortune's fool" (III.i.135), night of love seems to be a constituent
of the human personality, compounded
he is merely rationalizing. Nothing is of the will to die and the will to return
simple in Shakespeare. If fortune fuses to the womb. The fact that Romeo and
with fate on the one hand, it fuses with
Providence on the other. Romeo is Juliet, like Tristan and Isolde, hate the
"Fortune's fool." But in Romeo and day and cherish the night is profoundly
symbolic. A love like their love cannot
Juliet, fortune is not fickle but purpose-
live
ful. As Willard Farnham has indicated, in the daylight world of prose. Thus
their love has both a positive and a
fortune is ultimately referable to God's
negative pole, and our response to it
will, according to the medieval must
recon-
be an ambivalent one. Romeo and
ciliation of seemingly contrary author-
Juliet have achieved something beyond
ities.' And in Romeo and Juliet fortune
the ability of Mercutio or the Nurse or
the Friar or the parents to conceive.
4The Medieval Heritage of Elizabethan Trag-
edy (Oxford, 1956), p. 104. They have achieved perfect communion,
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ROMEO AND JULIET 501
Our solemn
total absorption of self in hymns
the to sullen dirges
other. We
cannot help respondingchange,to this rare con-
Our bridal flowers serve for a buried
summation. But its price is death, the
corse,
extinction of the individual personality.
And all things change them to the
Tragedies of the greatest
contrary, magnitude
are rituals of self-destruction. The pro-
(IV.v.84-90)
tagonists are sacrificed to "save" the
he is saying
audience. That is the meaning more than he of knows.cathar-
For
not only has he changed
sis. One is purged through tragedy of the his complexion,
desire to destroy not only is he grieving
oneself by for a live
an daugh-
excess
ter, not only is it his doing
of desire, by monomania, bythat hasthe
made un-
leashed forces of the id. In Romeo anda funeral of a festival, but the entire
Juliet Shakespeare offers us the opportu- is an expression of things changing
play
nity both to participate in the lovetoof
their contraries. Hasting lovers are
Romeo and Juliet, to sympathize withtransformed into statues; feuding fathers
become friends; a moderation-counselling
it, to vicariously gratify our own desire
friar becomes the most extreme stumbler
for it, and simultaneously to react against
it. of all; fickle fortune becomes purpose-
The function of the contraries and ful; life-giving, light-giving love radiates
reversals in Romeo and Juliet is to sustain
darkness and death; the deaths of the
what Simon O. Lesser terms "a sense lovers
of produce a kind of birth by ending
civil strife. In Friar Laurence's terms:
the opposite.""' The play possesses what
Lesser calls "the sublime ambivalence of The earth that's nature's mother is her
tomb;
great narrative art.'6 We are constantly
aware of the double face of the action. What is her burying grave that is her
womb . . .
When old Capulet laments: (II.iii.9-10)
All things that we ordained festival,
Turn from their office to black funeral;
Romeo and Juliet, in its contraries, re-
Our instruments to melancholy bells,versals, and transformations, furnishes us
Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast,with a dynamic image of the impulsive-
inhibited ambivalence of the human
'Fiction and the Unconscious (Boston, 1957), psyche itself. Every human action is the
p. 87. mate, the father, the child of its con-
"Ibid., p. 120. trary.
A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
The sun for sorrow will not show his head:
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardon'd and some punished:
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.
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