Discuss your reactions to the play as a whole. Now that you have actually read through the entire play (and please do not respond until you are finished–for those in Black Forest League, I have extended the due date of this discussion), reflect upon the way the play surprised you or made you ponder. How do the personality flaws or strengths lead the characters to take the actions they do? What makes the play so timeless? How does it relate to contemporary life?
Ms. Gutierrez's 8th Grade English
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April 15, 2009 at 2:16 pm
I think that Romeo and Juliet really does reflect modern times in certain ways. I mean there are some big differences, but that is just because the times have changed. The play really hits on key personality traits for boys and girls. Juliet is a very typical girl. She knows how to twist her words, so that Romeo will say exactly what she wants him to. She’s also impatient, whiney, and a bit of a drama queen. Romeo is one of those very sensitive types of guys. He says all the right things, he’s sweet, caring, and REALLY annoying. They’re love is deep though. I believe that is what makes the play a classic. Nothing can keep them apart. Not they’re families, not Romeo being banished, and not even death in the end. It’s something that you don’t really see. That’s why the play is so timeless.
April 15, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Romeo and Juleit really does reflect modern life in certian ways. Juliet is a good repressentation of girls, eventhough Romeo is not a good repressentation of guys. Thye fact that Romeo and Juleit love each other so much affeccts every action that they make, and really this is what makes the plot in this book. However, in whole I thought that the book was pretty lame. I mean, Juliet is 14 and Romeo is 21? How does that work? Everything that happened in it was also way overdramatized.
April 15, 2009 at 5:41 pm
The play really surprised me because I didn’t know the full story and I thought it was just going to be Romeo and Juliet’s parents forbidding them to see each other. I did not know about any of the other things that happened. I was also surprised that is was so dirty. I think the character’s personalities were pretty accurate, but the things they did were not. Like Gabe said, a 21 year old man would not fall in love with a 13 year old girl in most cases (or vice versa). I think the bottom line is that Romeo and Juliet’s love for each other affected everyone in their lives. I completely agree with Savannah about why the story is such a classic. I thought it was a pretty good book, but it would have been really hard to read alone.
April 16, 2009 at 12:06 pm
I thought I knew the story of Romeo and Juliet, but I did not know about all of the other characters. I agree with Sasha that i did not know that it was a dirty story. I also agree with Sav that it is a typical love story, but in a way, usually the characters do not die in the end. I really liked the book, and I like how we could read it all together, because it was hard to understand.
April 16, 2009 at 12:12 pm
I think really nothing surprised me besides that the families didn’t freak out when they heard about that romeo and juliet were married.n It really wasnt that dirty of a story at all because what they are talking about is what alot of people now a days are also talking about that. It was not a typical love story at all because these people were WAY overly obsessed with love when they weren’t supposed to be with each other. This book really made me angry how such a bay was romeo.
April 16, 2009 at 12:58 pm
I think that there are many morals to this story. I believe that it states suicide doesn’t solve anything, and that truth is always the best answer. Maybe if Juliet and Romeo had told their parents about getting married, all of this wouldn’t of happened. I also think that this states that love can be wonderful, but it can be deadly and terrible as seen in Romeo and Juliet. I believe this happens in ever day life, but with different dialect. The play made me ponder about many things, like if the nurse and friar weren’t involved how it would have turned out. It was interesting to see how the story ended.
April 16, 2009 at 1:07 pm
I agree with Sasha when she was surprised about the plot. I thought it was going to be more like the Romeo and Juliet story in A Midsummer’s Nights Dream. I also agree with Savannah when she says it shows really important personality traits.
April 16, 2009 at 4:13 pm
A lot of important things have been mentioned on this topic. The one that interests me the most is how the book compares to real life. I was partly surprised about the plot. Like Rachael, I thought the ending would be like A Midsummer Night’s Dream. But Romeo and Juliet is not a comedy, and yet, it showed some comedic values(even if they weren’t appropriate). How this story was written really shocked me. The love moments, the fight scenes, and the revolting jokes were nothing like I suspected. In a way, the book is somewhat related to real life, but people don’t walk around nowadays talking in old English(that’s probably a good thing). A situation like this can happen in real life, but not that often since our society doesn’t have nobles. Only rich people, and they usually keep to themselves.
April 16, 2009 at 5:58 pm
The play really surprised me because as Sasha said i thought i knew the plot of Romeo and Juliet. I knew that they killed themselves and fell in love but i also thought their parents would forbidden to see each other. The book actually relates to modern times (like know) by like how Juliet is a typical girl by as Sav said twisting words so no one can really understand that she likes Romeo and make it seem different. I really thought about what the Friar Lawrence and Nurse did to help Juliet and Romeo. They also help kill Romeo and Juliet. When Juliet ALMOST married Paris the Friar and Nurse knew she was already married so they helped Juliet poison herself.
April 16, 2009 at 6:43 pm
When we first started reading the book, I thought that I knew the story. In reality, I only knew the vrey beginning and the very end. As Sasha and Sam said, that story was dirtier than I thought. The thing that makes the story so timeless is that it is so similar to today’s stories. Although most people don’t kill themselves because their heart’s desire is dead, this story can match up to so many people’s stories. Obviously, people don’t get married three hours after they met, but Romeo and Juliet are special, and they are probably the only exception.
Overall,I liked reading thbook because we got to discuss it, and we picked it apart. Because of this, I liked the book more than if I were to have read the book by myself. I speak for myself and maybe one other person when I say that I had fun reading this book. Eventhough it is a little weird, it was funny hearing the nurse and Mercutio. The end depresses me though.
April 16, 2009 at 7:45 pm
Hi, this is, as does implies the name, Illianna. One of the many things that is said about Shakespear, is that his plays can fit any time frame. At first, I had started to read the book by reading the name before the dialogue, but then I just read the dialogue, switching voices inside of my head when there was a new paragraph. This is the play that anyone thinks of when someone says Shakespear. The one thing that surprised me the most was the fact that this happened over the course of a few days, as I had originally thought that it took weeks, if not months, for them to meet, get married, and die. I was also surprised that they, mostly Juliet, were that young; although one should expect that with a story written from that day and age. It was a good story once I got used to it. The humor, mostly from Mercutio, was humorous at first, but it got old really fast. The one theing that I confused me was that some of the words had the top two corners sort of boxed in, and then some of it was in paranthesis, and I wasn’t sure why that was. It was rather sad how the hatered of two families caused both of their only children to die. The story was good, the only awkward part was the sound effects on the tape. The end is sad, but both Romeo and Juliet died knowing that they would be re-united (NOT the way everyone is thinking, but by actually getting to know eachother personality wise) soon.
~Illianna
April 16, 2009 at 7:53 pm
The story really surprised me. When someone talks about the play I think about a love story. When in reality it is a tragedy. As Madison said, this story relates to modern life. Other than getting married so young, Juliet is obsessed with Romeo and she changes everybody’s words to get what she wants. One of the main parts of this play that surprised me was the fact that the dialogue wasn’t that hard to read or understand. Another surprising fact was that Romeo wasn’t anything but a depressed young adult. In general this book was very interesting and different than I imagined it to be.
April 16, 2009 at 8:49 pm
when we started reading this book, some of the words and the accent they used in pronusing them were really hard to under stand but i actaully got what was happening towards the end of the book. one of the things i liked about that book were the characters in it. i think shakepear did a great job on choosing his actors.but my fevorite actor was juilet because i think she is really smart on every thing she does till the end when she decides to kill her self because romeo was dead and i think thats what some peopil do in mordern day when they really love some or when some one they love dies. this book was the best book we have ever read in english class eventhougth it was really hard to understand and i kind of agree with illianna and Rachel S on their idea’s
April 16, 2009 at 9:37 pm
I didn’t understand the play when we first started reading it, but it became easier to understand as we went on. Romeo was a creepy boy. Juliet was a typical teenage girl. The nurse was a kind of light-switch character. And the friar was a not so helpful friend. Overall, the book seemed like a bunch of adults acting like middle schoolers.
April 17, 2009 at 7:59 pm
The reason I believe Romeo and Juilet is such a well known classic play is because it is a fairy tale in its own right because the forbidden love and true love is the things that little girls who wish they were princesses like the ones from the disney movies dream of possing when the are older. That is what you automaticaly assume, especially is you haven’t read the play. In the play the act less than perfect and the fairy tale story isn’t rhe plot you here about and so many things we ear, see, and read about refer to.
April 19, 2009 at 1:06 pm
While reading the book, it really surprised me to see re that the characters and the whole story really isn’t anything like what people make it out to be. People (especially young people who haven’t read the book) think that the love story of Romeo and Juliet is just two young people who fell in love, but the story is way more than that; it’s two young people who fall in love after a short period of time of knowing each other and their families are enemies and they try to have a life together but everything that they do backfires and never works out. I never expected this book to be anything like it was, and I agree with Sam that I enjoyed reading it in class because it was a very hard book to understand.
April 19, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Romeo and Juliet is timeless because almost every love story after Romeo and Juliet followed the same direction. Two lovers having a difficult time because of outside influences. For example, In Twilight, Edward and Isabella had a hard time because she was a human and he was a vampire. Romeo was a Montague who hated Capulets and Juliet was a Capulet who hated Montagues.
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Some possible morals of the story are;
Hate can cause death
Don’t go to quickly or bad things happen
April 20, 2009 at 6:16 am
Romeo and Juliet is a very ineresting play. I dont like how the book ends. Romeo and Juliet both die. It is not a pleasant story.
April 20, 2009 at 12:47 pm
the story suprised me more than I thought it would. I was suprised about friar lawrence giving Juliet the “death” potion.
I think the morals are: Come clean with you’re parents and get you’re stories straight befor you make a big desicion.
April 20, 2009 at 1:15 pm
The story surprised me when Romeo and Juilet got married the families really didnt freak out as much as i thought they would, as Billy pointed out. I did not think that it was a very good story, because everyone dies in the end.
April 20, 2009 at 1:23 pm
the book was confusing in the beginning but as the book went on
I started to undersat the book was very dramatic and Romeo is really really weird.
Romeo in my opinion is a desperate person because we we t from one girl to the other in a heart beat. Juliet is a normal girl she likes guys and dreams about them. She’s normal that’s wat teens do. The nurse in my opinion is a funny person. Hahaha but ya
April 20, 2009 at 1:45 pm
i believe that the book explained the past briefly then went on to the story of Romeo and Juliet.(Prologue) the book made me ponder the exact story-line i knew the basic two houses feuding and two lovers from the different houses liking each other then marrying then dying. From what i expected though it was very different i thought that Romeo would be like the knight in shining armor and take Juliet away, but not as it happened he was the knight and took her heart away but then he got banishéd from the town and went back to kill himself.It relates to contemporary life in the way that whatever might go wrong can go wrong and what went wrong in the book was Romeo was misinformed of Juliet’s death and killed himself when she wasn’t dead and then she killed herself again. and then at the end of he book it showed how you never truly miss someone until their gone and thats what happened to the Montague and Capulet families.
April 20, 2009 at 3:48 pm
The book was different from what I expected. I knew that Romeo and Juliet were not supposed to be in love (yet they were) and that everyone died in the end, but the book was much more lively than I thought it would be. I did not know that there were other characters that were so involved with Romeo and Juliet in the book, and that surprised me. I also wondered why neither Romeo or Juliet did anything that would have made the outcome better. Neither one told their families about the marriage, which could have helped. Because of this and other problems, the two lovers were doomed from the beginning. I do think that this story is timeless, even though it is old, because the same kind of things happen in life today. For example, some parents may dislike the friend or spouse their child chooses. Therefore, I think that the story of Romeo and Juliet relates quite well to modern life, even though it was written a long time ago.
April 20, 2009 at 4:03 pm
I agree with Illianna that it took a very short time for Romeo and Juliet to fall in love and eventually die. They met each other one evening and immediately fell in love. The same night they made plans to marry! This is abnormal today, and it amazes me that anyone could fall in love so quickly. The entire play seems to have happened over a few days, and that is very surprising to me because I expected all of the events to require more time.
April 20, 2009 at 6:00 pm
The characters are somewhat normal with personal flaws that are only amplified by their social status. Shakespeare touched on many popular themes and ideologies. Things such as a plea against hatred, or the truest of all loves. These themes are incredibly present in our society today and are what makes this story so popular. The death at the end provides a feeling of profoundness. The idea that love is better than death is seen by the reader as a point that most men find unthinkable. They can think this without having to name the man.
April 20, 2009 at 6:24 pm
This book was very interesting to read, although everyone knows how the story goes and that evceryone dies in the end, it was still interesting to see the story unfold. It was hard to picture this story happening in modern time. The main characters are a little strange and sometimes even creepy. It was very wierd to see two people fall in love in three hours but even more strange is how they commit suicide for a person they have only known for a short period of time. I think this book is timeless because people enjoy the love that Romeo and Juliet have and someday wish to posses that bond with another person.
April 20, 2009 at 6:37 pm
Romeo and Juliet is a tale of many people who are too quick to judge without understanding the full story. Tybalt and Capulet were too hot-headed to listen to either Romeo or Juliet, Mercutio didn’t quite understand how devoted Romeo was to Juliet, with good reason because before that Romeo was inconsistant about woman, and the Friar and Nurse were involved too late in the story to really make any impact on the plot that benefitted the lovers. Romeo and Juliet weren’t the victims though. It was as much their fault as anyone else. Romeo minced words with people, especially Tybalt which ended badly, and Juliet didn’t have the gall to tell her parents about their marrige. And sprinkled on top of the story was a textbook case of bad luck. Romeo gets banished and the man Friar sends never makes it to Romeo. Also, Paris want to marry Juliet at the exact time that Tybalt dies, and that Paris and Romeo happen to go to Juliet’s tomb at the exact same time. Clearly, Shakespeare couldn’t have made a better situation of a train wreck on the same track. To reiterate, the moral of the story is never to assume or judge too quickly because you may not see the whole picture. I dissagree strongly with Kelsey. Romeo is just the average teenager who happens to fall in love. And until we really know what that feels like, we cant be “too quick to judge”.
April 20, 2009 at 7:51 pm
I can remember ever since I was young, hearing stories about the play & hearing about people who performed in it. Although I knew Romeo and Juliet died all along, I never knew it was going to be such a dramatic and tragic story. I must say I’m very proud of the fact that I was given the chance to not only read the play but also go through what it really meant. Like our previous blog discussion, Romeo is always heard to be what a girl wants in her life. I have to say I used to be one of those girls until I read the play. I think Romeo acts like a momma’s boy, if not, a baby. I thought it was wonderful how passionate Romeo and Juliet were for each other but sometimes I thought they went too far with them acting like “woe is me” when they weren’t with each other. I think if everyone were to act like that today we would not be a successful society if we always needed someone by our sides every minute of the day. I agree it’s nice to have a companion, but sometimes we need to take the less taken roads and see where they take us.
April 20, 2009 at 7:57 pm
The play surprised me because I didn’t expect the people in it to be so creepy and I thought the story would be more as Sasha said, parents forbidding them from seeing eachother. I think that the story is so timeless because of the themes of self-sacrificing love, fighting families, and lovers who refuse to be sepparated. We see these themes in all kinds of modern stories.
April 20, 2009 at 8:05 pm
I think it is timeless because it is a classic love story. Except the ages 14 and what 18? Seriously that is a little to young i think. Romeo and Juliet seems very perfect in a way but in another way it seems like it is unreal. There is a very fine line between the two and that is the play. The character made it all fit together perfectly, Juliet’s ‘cant let romeo go’ personality and Romeo’s ‘i cant let Juliet go’ made it just click. Plus this story appears in almost every modern love story.
April 20, 2009 at 8:07 pm
When we started reading I already knew the story from hearing it over and over. I have seen the play many times, but I never really understood it until I read the book. I feel this story will always remain timeless. No matter how far along in history we go the story is always repeated. From West Side Story to the new Romeo and Juliet with Leonardo DiCaprio, the story will always be repeated. Know matter how much you don’t like the book, or how much you disagree with it, it is something that can happen to all of us and it will always be true to our hearts.
April 20, 2009 at 8:08 pm
Know that i look back the book was pretty good. While we were reading it i thought it was long and overly dramatic. I was surprised at how complicated things got near the end. Romeo being so kind hearted and feminen ended up killing two people and himself! I think the play seems so timeless because there is always something interesting happening. There was always one event after the other.
April 20, 2009 at 8:09 pm
Romeo and Juliet is a good love story but I think the ending is a little “sappy” because they both die and everyone is like in shock and it doesn’t say how everything else turns out after the bloodshed, but I think that is a great play for the time it was written. Shakespear is truly a good playwrite in the time period he did write. I also think that Romeo is kinda a stocker in his own way as Juliet is only 14 and he is 18ish but they really do love eachother. I also think that it was wrong that the capulet was making Juliet marry to someone she doesn’t love and on how old she is make quite a difference but in that time that’s what happened, if it was in this time it would be frowned upon on the age of Juliet when she is getting married.
April 20, 2009 at 8:11 pm
But I also think Juliet cries too much but I guess she is an adolecsent teenage girl.
April 20, 2009 at 9:33 pm
Romeo and Juliet balance each other out very well in many ways. I think that because of Juliets stubornness and perhaps a very slight lack of courage(just as all teenagers have) forced her to lie to her parents and put her in a position to marry county Paris when she was already married to Romeo. She, of course didn’t want to inform her parents of her true romance because of the controversy between their families. I also think that Romeo’s settle-for-anything attitude convinced him that he was in love with the first “pretty girl” he saw. The Capulets as well as the Montagues were too quick to judge the child of the other family just because of their differences and each did not give them a fair chance to have what they wanted. This, I believe could be part of the reason Romeo and Juliet wanted to make their relationship last so much(because there are rules there is reason to break them). I also believe that many people were falsly blamed for the mistakes of others or the mistakes of no one at all. For instance, because of Friar Lawerence’s generous and helpful personality, he makes the “mistake” of marrying Romeo and Juliet and then he has to fix it by helping Juliet to find a solution when she must marry County Paris. The Nurse has a very comforting personality, but whenever she tries to give Juliet advice Juliet just decides that perhaps the Nurse isn’t actually on her side. Over all it is a good book with contrasting characters and an interesting plot. Occasionally there is a bad decision made on the characters’ part because of their personality, but that’s what keeps the story interesting!
April 21, 2009 at 6:21 pm
I thought that Romeo was going to be a hero/macho type guy, but he was acctually a little wimmpy. He was alwase complaning. My favorite character was Mercucio. he was alwase making fun of Romeo and telling evryone that Romeo was changig his mind too fast. I thought that the ending was the best part because it showed that you don’t know what you have untill it is gone. Also that even in the light of tragedy people still find hope and break down barriers. The Montegues and the Capulets hated eachother for a longe time, but in the wake of somthing terrible for each of the families they found it in their hearts to forgive.
April 24, 2009 at 12:15 pm
The play really surprised me. I never thought that Romeo would be like so whiney, annoying, and immature guy. He cries for everything. Juliet is a normal teenage girl. I think the ending was little sad because they loved each other so much, but they both died at the end. First time we started Romeo & Juliet, I didn’t understand what they were saying,but it got easier.