From Passion To Perdition: The Duality of Love in Shakespeare’s Romeo And Juliet

Abstract

This study investigates the duality of love in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, focusing on its transformative yet destructive nature, with specific attention to the interplay of passion and societal constraints. Shakespeare’s tragedy presents love as both a life-giving force and a path to ruin. The juxtaposition of youthful desire and familial enmity frames love not merely as personal but as socially conditioned. By highlighting its dual aspects, the play reveals the paradoxical essence of human emotions. A qualitative textual analysis is employed, drawing upon close reading and intertextual references to literary criticism and thematic interpretations. The findings indicate that love in the play functions simultaneously as an agent of liberation and destruction. Romeo and Juliet’s passion challenges familial hierarchies but ultimately succumbs to rigid social structures. The tragic culmination illustrates how love, when entangled with external conflicts, leads to both personal transcendence and irreversible loss.