Star- crossed Lovers

Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet shows us the obstacles between the relationship of two lovers in the Medieval Times. A forbidden love triggers a series of different aspects that affect not just the couple, but the people around them and even an entire society. These obstacles can be shown in three layers which are: psychological, social and global. The reasons for Romeo’s and Juliet’s failure go from global problems like fate and time and pass through a social issue like lack of advice to finally arrive in a more personal obstacle like deficiency of communication.
Since the beginning of the book the audience was given the idea that the relationship between Romeo and Juliet was never going to be successful. The first visible obstacle was fate, followed by time. These star crossed-lovers tried to contradict their incontrovertible destiny by turning their lives into misery just for the sake of having each other. It wasn’t meant to happen and like always we are not the ones who decide what happens next, the stars are the ones that control every aspect of our being. The Montague’s and Capulet’s feud forced Romeo and Juliet to make everything in a hurry and at the same time they isolated themselves to a point were they had no one that could give them advice. The lack of time was a mayor obstacle in their relationship and it was possibly the reason why they got married. If Juliet wouldn’t have been obligated to marry Paris, she wouldn’t have married Romeo when she did. Bad timing was the reason for such a tragic ending. If they would have had even just a few minutes it’s possible that the ending would have been completely different, but again, it was meant to happen that way.
Communication always plays an important role in every relationship. Any type of relationship that can possibly exist needs it to interact healthily. People can talk a lot and tell stories to each other but communicating is much different. It turns into a hard thing to do when the receiver has a totally different point of view, and it’s unable to understand the message. The communication-breakdown in Romeo and Juliet is splited into two categories: light and heavy and Friar Lawrence. The differences between Romeo and Juliet are described as light and heavy, due to the fact that they are complete opposites and that their personalities are always described as either one of those. The heaviness and the terribly puzzling way in which Romeo speaks is a challenge for everyone who is trying to understand it. It can go be from a poor, uneducated servant to Juliet, but Romeo keeps boasting himself with oxymorons and puns that at the end mean nothing to anyone.
In the other hand, Juliet is completely straight forward and communicates with direct sentences that contain powerful meaning. These two ways of interacting prevent each other from understanding what it is necessary for them to hear. Behind the rush in their relationship and their lack of communication we find Friar Lawrence, the puppet master of this relationship and the only person who both Juliet and Romeo trust in. The friar takes advantage of the “love” between them and uses it to become a hero by joining the Montague’s and the Capulet’s together. Friar Lawrence was the only one who had the power to control the communication between Romeo and Juliet and he managed to manipulate it according to his needs and goals.
Juliet said it herself when she felt her relationship was Romeo was going to fast “this is too unadvised” and it was unadvised indeed. What at the beginning seemed to be two people perfectly surrounded by friends and family ended up reducing to two completely isolated lovers. Little by little the true intentions of every character towards Romeo and Juliet were revealed.

Medieval Love

The Canterbury Tales is a mixture of radically different personalities combined to give us an idea of sundry philosophies of life at the Medieval Times. The concept of love is one of the main themes of this book, despite the fact that every character sees it differently. There are four tales that contradict themselves completely, as a result of each of their author’s persona.
The Knights tale shows distinctly the authors purest value which is honor among brothers. At simple sight there appears to be a love triangle in this story, however the only love shown is fraternal and the woman doesn’t participate in any decision making. Knights always fight for honor in first place and this tale is not an exception. Brotherhood seems to be the only pure love that should exist.
The Women of Baths personality is exposed when pleasure appears to be the main value in a relationship in which women have complete control. Men are powerless and are seen as boy-toys through this lady’s eyes, as a result women are materialistic and possessive. The concept of seeing your husband as an equal is completely banished and forbidden from this story, because the author is the epicenter of strength herself. Its posible to say that love is very present in this tale, not as tender or caring, but as sexual pleasure and lust.
The Clerks conservative philosophy of life leads to a tyrannical point of view in which love is just proven by agreeing to everything men say. It’s basically the abolishment of every right a woman might posses and turning them into a lifeless object. His mind is a place in which equality is totally off the table and “The end justify the means” is applied in everything. It might be possible that love may not be involved in any way in this tale, on the contrary is the pleasure that control gives that keeps the show going.
As a businessman, the Franklin shows his trustworthy point of view by telling a story about promises and equality. This is the only tale in which there’s actually a balance between both sexes, and were everyone treats the people surrounding them with respect. Maturity and self responsibility play a gigantic role in this tale, considering the fact that is the only place were in can be seen in the four different stories. Love as we see it, reliable and comforting, can be observed all throughout the tale and it is seen as a reward for truth.
It is impossible to generalize the concept of love at the Medieval Times. The relativity that this word involves makes every definition posible too vague. Sadly, love can have infinite meanings and they all depend on the connotation that each person gives it. Even if relativity is the key of making an interesting experience in this world, and the motor that impulses society it would be extremely interesting as well to be able lo give love a universal meaning. Although, at the end we end up creating a personal definition based on experience and ideals.