Pride and Honor in the Time of Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet - Coursework Example

RANDJ When we think of pride and honor today, it may be about many things. Some people have pride in their possessions. Other people have pride intheir work. And honor is something that is associated with doing the right thing; it is a cultural construction. In the time and setting of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, pride and honor had more severe and deadly consequences than they do today, and these consequences were more involved in a paternalistic system of violence in their society. In other words, pride and honor, especially for the rivals Tybalt and Romeo in the play, are represented by blood-lust and revenge, as well as a system of organized feuding that thrives on violence between the society’s young males. Romeo and Tybalt both represent how pride and honor in this society have been twisted to have a meaning that implies violence and bloody revenge. The society of Verona in the play in fact feeds on the blood lust and violence of its young males, and prizes this violence as pride and honor, above the greater honor represented by religion, as well as by the non fatal break with tradition represented by Romeo and Juliet (and canceled by Tybalt). The sudden, fatal violence in the first scene of Act 3, and the accumulation of violence in the fight between Romeo and Tybalt, reminds us that everything is focused on love, conflict, pride, and honor. Romeo and Juliet always occurs in a male world in which notions of honor, pride, and the state are likely to erupt in a fury of conflict. Rage and danger in the social environment of the community are tools that Shakespeare uses to emphasize conflict and drama, making the lives of the characters seem even more precious and fragile. For example, compared to the relationship between Romeo and Juliet, the relationship between Romeo and Tybalt represents the brutal world in which their love is doomed. Clashes between Mercutio and Tybalt, as well as Romeo and Tybalt, are chaotic; Tybalt kills Mercutio under Romeo’s arm, flees, and then suddenly and inexplicably returns to fight Romeo, who kills for revenge. The pride and honor of violence is imposed at all times, because in this society, violence is something that is equated with masculine honor. Romeo and Tybalt work to show how pride and honor work as a foil to love and tenderness in Verona society, represented by Romeo and Juliet. This is seen in Verona as a when the unwelcome reality of the society in which they must live rushes in to counteract their positive feelings of union. Their love overrides this distinction, though, and they ultimately are able through acts of denial and outward piety to forestall the inevitable crush of society. And the vanquished namesakes seem to only apply to the couple: Romeo still kills Tybalt, even if he does so reluctantly and under duress after making initial positive connotations with his family name. “This, by his voice, should be a Montague.—Fetch me my rapier, boy:—what, dares the slave Come hither, coverd with an antic face, To fleer and scorn at our solemnity? Now, by the stock and honour of my kin, To strike him dead I hold it not a sin” (Shakespeare, 1995). Note how pride is also associated in this quotation with pleasing ancestry, and therefore perpetuating the cycle of violence. Pride and honor are not associated with love and nurturing; rather, with their opposite. Pride and honor work in this setting representative of a malevolent, shut-in society that allows its seed (youth) to die pointlessly as it regresses into a state of near-barbarity, with an eye on its past. The town sees itself from a perspective of biased hindsight in which the past has become the goal of the future, and things are in a state of flux. The mythicized past into which Verona is sinking is in reality a refutation of “fraternal” love and the “actual” ideals of pride and honor. This type of honor, which can be hesitantly assumed to be multi-gender, is represented by the character of Father Laurence, and thus associates it with Christianity. However, it is the more sinister concept of honor which predominates in the play, although it may still be superficially called Christian. Pride and honor as defined by Verona’s society implies that the ultimate definition for Romeo’s manhood lies in socially accepted violence with Tybalt. Romeo is thus seen as a character who is capable of making a choice between this violence (killing Tybalt) and its antithesis (seeing Juliet), while Shakespeare accurately portrays adolescence as a time when most would rather have it both ways. It is possible to also see these two distinct and separate alternatives as the choice to become, respectively, a regressive member of society or sexually extra-familial. From this perspective, pride and the family are mixed. There is a lot of violence that springs up around pride and honor in the play. Mercutio curses the Montagues and the Capulets. People seem to see pride and honor in death, and give no credit to a higher power. Elizabethan society is generally believed to have sought a certain paradigm of masculinity based on violence as honor. Romeo notes this clearly when he says that his love for Juliet had made him effeminate. Once again, this statement can be considered as a battle between the private world of love and the public world of honor, duty and friendship. Romeo, who challenges Tybalt, chooses pride and honor as a violent extension of a society which tends to delight in shedding the blood of its own young males. Used to describe its current status, Romeo takes responsibility which is forced upon him, the social institutions of family, pride, honor, and duty. The ideas of pride and honor are not his, but come to him from the advice of his elders and tradition. Honor and pride are also mixed up with religion in this society. So, from a certain focus or perspective, we see the fear that Verona is sinking into paganism, and will perhaps soon be resorting to shamanism to cure its prevalent ills The hatreds that lie between the Montagues and Capulets exist as the unnatural result of too much self-love evident in both families. This love is seen by to be proven unsatisfactory by Shakespeare’s play. When people have problems with self direction, they tend to turn these problems outwards and direct them at the world in a negative and destructive manner that is ultimately narcissist. This is also echoed in the narcissism of Tybalt’s speeches of pride and honor in the play: this narcissism as being capable of being diffused from the personal to the familial to the societal level. “Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries That thou hast done me; therefore turn and draw./ I do protest, I never injured thee, But love thee better than thou canst devise, Till thou shalt know the reason of my love: And so, good Capulet,--which name I tender As dearly as my own,--be satisfied” (Shakespeare, 1995). This quotation supports the idea of a society that is not dissolving into the past as much as it is continuing a paradigm of repressive patriarchal authority. In this way, the Verona of the play is forever looking backwards in a conservative manner. In this paradigm of pride and honor being defined by the patriarchy of Verona, the authority of old men who are growing weak is carried out by the younger and more impressionable males of their respective families, Montague and Capulet, who vicariously fulfill the stilted, violent, and pathetic fantasies of virility in which the patriarchal figures indulge. This is seen in the behavior or Romeo and Tybalt, and also, this in turn leads to the young males’ subsequent violent treatment of women. It is questionable whether males who insult each other by referring to one another as feminine are actually talking about real women, in this report’s humble opinion. Nonetheless, the fulfillment of this male power-fantasy can be seen as self-directed. Still, the society of Verona is not seen to be in decline, but is seen as steadily continuing and adding to a set patriarchal structure throughout finite time. In this structure, pride and honor are clearly linked with violence, and a tradition of violence among males in the society that goes back for generations. Defining power, duty, pride, and honor in Verona, we see that self-defining conceptions which arise out of love are ultimately seen as a threat to the society which wants to propagate itself within an atmosphere of violence and turmoil. The duality of the situation is clear and inherently Shakespearian: coming of age, the two lovers are destroyed by the fact that they try to rise above the feuds between their families, represented by the violence between Romeo and Tybalt. Their sexuality is shown to be fatal in the face of a death-obsessed society steeped in violence, where pride and honor are also equated with violence, and honor is something that is seen as being prized and defended with one’s life. In this society where pride and honor are so mixed up with vengeance and blood-lust, the youth are encouraged, males and females respectively, to either go out and kill the enemies of their fathers or wait complacently for a match to be made so that motherhood can begin. Romeo and Juliet represent two lovers’ flight from these standards as potential to point out the reversal of roles that occurs in their rebellion. In the end, Romeo goes to Juliet in the mausoleum, while traditionally the female goes to the male house. Juliet ultimately uses the dagger in an apparent reversal of gender-roles and feminine appropriation of the phallic object of violence, echoed by the violence of Tybalt: “That, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word, As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee:Have at thee, coward!” (Shakespeare, 1995). Even in the end, it is more about Romeo and Tybalt. Seeing pride and honor thus dispatched in society is also to see that the prince and the focus of angry citizens will play a different type of advertising. Romeo kills Tybalt and is marked with the haste and vengeance by the haughty features of the nobility, but in the context of those who threaten public order, the public wants order and the prince is obliged to maintain. As one who has exhibited some traits of character, Romeo is banished from Verona. The prince previously worked to suppress the anger of the Montagues and Capulets to preserve the public peace, are now increasingly working to avoid violence, and the prince unknowingly acts to suppress the love of Romeo and Juliet. Consequently, their love is expressed through the violence of Romeo and Tybalt’s conflict, representative of the Montagues and Capulets, but the Prince of Verona, Romeo and Juliet’s relationship with Romeo brings the danger of violent retaliation from the family and the state. “What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds? Turn thee, Benvolio; look upon thy death” (Shakespeare, 1995). Violent societies tend to breed violent themes. REFERENCE Shakespeare, W (1995). Romeo and Juliet. New York: Penguin. Read More