Michael Kusuma

Mrs.Parrott/Mulvey

Eng.1p / Per. 1

March 24,2017

Collection 4 Summative Essay

What Is Love?

Love, Its complicated and we can never understand it but Friends show their love in

times of trouble, not in happiness - Euripides. It doesnt have to only be friends but it is love in

general. The ones that truly love you will stay or come back in hard times and help you through

it. In the play, Romeo And Juliet, by William Shakespeare, it shows that two very different

people can be in love. Romeo and Juliet is the perfect example of love at first sight. As soon as

Romeo saw Juliet he was relieved and has been lifted from his burden of Rosaline, a girl that

rejected Romeos love. At the end, Romeo and Juliet end up dead because of a

misunderstanding. This is also very similar to the myth Pyramus and Thisbe, by Ovid. Love has

many characteristics, for example it contains passion, conflict, and pain.

One of loves characteristics is that it contains passion. True loved ones will never give

up even though the times get rough. For example, In Romeo and Juliet, when Romeo first sees

Juliet at the party she is instantly hooked and told the nurse to Go ask his name - If he be

married, my grave is like to be my wedding bed. (Shakespeare I/V/132). This means that she

will kill herself or rather be dead if she doesnt get to marry Romeo. This is significant because

she is showing lots of passion or dedication. As love can do good or bad things, it wasnt on

Juliets side. Furthermore, In Pyramus and Thisbe, they were not allowed to see each other. But
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they found a crack in the wall and used that to communicate. They didnt take it for granted and

the myth states that And having talked in vain, the lovers still remained apart. (Ovid 1). This

means that Pyramus and Thisbe used this as a way to communicate but even though they talked

in vain, they couldnt be together. This shows how strong their bond is and even though

everything tried to keep them they still remained loving each other and showing how passionate

they are. Through all the hardships love can give you it is your job to have confidence and

believe in who you love. This means that never give up or come back to your loved ones in hard

times and show what true love is and make them better.

When you are in love, their will be conflicts in your way. For Romeo and Juliet, most of

their relationship was based on situations going wrong. As soon as Romeo spots Juliet for the

first time he is instantly hooked. And when the party ends Juliet finds out that Romeo is a

montague and statesMy only love sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown, and

known too late! (Shakespeare I/V/136-137). This shows that Juliets first love, Romeo, was her

enemy. This foreshadows the tragic ending as it already a conflict. As you can see, love is

already giving them a problem even though they just met. But they did not take the warning

seriously and moved forward in their relationship. In addition, Pyramus and Thisbe had a similar

problem. But they communicated more often through this wall that they found a crack in that

only speech may slip through. And every time the lovers heard each other sigh they would say

O, jealous wall, why do you block our path? (Ovid 1). This is obviously a conflict they both

have. They want to be together but there is this wall separating them. This expresses how love

can contain conflicts. In this case it was a wall that was separating them from being together.
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But eventually they did meet each other. To sum up, love can be very joyful. But to get to that

stage you must overcome the conflicts in your way. Romeo and Pyramus did but it wasnt what

they wanted and both of them had to suffer.

Every decision you make will have its consequences. And when Romeo and Pyramus

conquered their conflicts, they didnt get to have what they wanted and had to go through a lot of

pain. For example, when Juliet decides to drink the liquid to make her appear dead, she puts her

family in grief and the play states Alas, alas! Help, help! My ladys dead! (Shakespeare

IV/V/14 - 15). The quote means that the family is asking for help and claims Juliet is dead.

When Juliet made this decision she has put her family through a lot of pain and soon Romeo will

receive more pain when he sees Juliet dead. In the same way Pyramus also thought Thisbe

was dead so he stabbed himself with his dagger and as he died, he wrenched the dagger from

his gashing wound. (Ovid 2). This means that when he has stabbed himself, he pulled out the

dagger causing him a lot of pain. He didnt cause pain to himself only, when Thisbe returned she

found Pyramus dead and she too kills herself. Which ends in a very awful way. Love isnt

always about happiness with the ones you care about. It contains many problems that can cause

serious damage to you mentally. And you might feel that the world is just a terrible place and

the pain pulls you deeper into darkness.

Love has many aspects and it involves passion, conflict, and pain. And as you can see

there cant be happiness without affection. There cant be passion without conflict and with

every problem there will be pain. Everything relies on each other, if a part went missing you
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couldnt call it love. The problem in both stories was that the men overreacted and things

werent as they seemed. Romeo and Pyramus thought their mates were dead, but they couldnt

stand the pain and found a solution to relieve them from it so they killed themselves. As I said,

things arent as they seemed. For a story, it is great because it surprises us with different

outcomes. But we dont want this to happen in reality. So when you fall in love for somebody,

just remember to expect the unexpected.