What would you say to a comment that Romeo and Juliet is irrelevant to the modern world - Essay Example

After all, issues dealt with by young people of the Middle Ages could hardly have known the various pressures and issues facing the youth of the modern world, complete with dangerous drugs, significant family problems or gang violence. However, anyone remotely familiar with the play will quickly recognize these very modern issues within the action of the play. The play opens with a sense of gang wars as the men of Capulet meet with the men of Montague in the streets of Verona. As Gregory and Sampson talk among themselves, it is clear that they have nothing but evil intent for anyone associated with the house of Montague: “When I have fought with the men, I will be cruel with the maids, and cut off their heads” (I, i).

As the conversation continues, it becomes clear that a play on words is intended here in which Sampson promises to fight, and kill if possible, the men of the rival ‘gang’ and rape their women, or kill them, depending upon how the mood strikes him. When they see two servants of the Montague household, the scene quickly escalates into a fight, which eventually draws in the younger members of the family, the citizens of the street and eventually summons the heads of household as well as the prince of the city to the scene.

This sequence of events sounds very similar to the escalation of gang wars in which murders are committed on either side, with guns rather than swords, until the gang leaders and the community are involved and the police attempt to restore order. Family problems are also illustrated throughout the play. Although Juliet isn’t raised in a single family household, she is isolated from her parents and the rest of her community. The nurse’s ramblings at the beginning of Act 1, scene 3 reveals that Lady Capulet didn’t nurse her own child.

As was the practice of the day, Juliet had a wet-nurse, who has served her in the capacity of a mother