Renowned Shakespeare scholar Harold Bloom calls the character of Juliet "radically free of flaw." Indeed, her innocence and idealism are nothing short of intoxicating. When she assures Romeo that her "bounty is as boundless as the sea," we are certain of it. Her love is all-encompassing, and although Romeo's feelings are mutua l-- and he is struck dumb by this "bright angel" whose beauty would make the very moon envious -- he is maligned by a quest for vengeance in the wake of his friend Mercutio's murder. This weakness is the key to his downfall.
The inciting incident of the play occurs when Romeo first sees Juliet at the Capulet Ball. Although the two are worried about the repercussions of their forbidden love, they are positive and resolute. That is, until Romeo -- driven to avenge his friend's death -- kills Juliet's cousin during a public fight. This act clearly sets the wheels in motion for the unfolding tragedy, as it forces Juliet to declare her loyalty to her cousin's murderer. "Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring," she says, "Your tributary drops belong to woe,/ Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy." In the end, she realizes she is more glad that Romeo lives, than sorry that her cousin Tybalt has perished.
Shakespeare is a stylistic genius. It is no mistake that he chooses to open this play with a sonnet -- a poetic form with a well-established connection to erotic love. His use of pun is present here to lighten our emotional load, as when Mercutio utters his dying words, "Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man." One of the most famous lines in theatrical history is a result of Shakeapeare's incorporation of oxymoron, when he has Juliet lament, "Parting is such sweet sorrow." It is critical for students to understand that these are the kinds of choices that make literature an art form.
The tone in the play changes swiftly from dreamy abandon at love's siege to outrage, and finally, to melancholy. This frenetic pace and inconstancy reflects the nature of adolescence itself. Ending as it does with a double suicide, the play proves a vehicle for Shakespeare's didacticism, when he closes the story by framing it as a cautionary tale, for "never was a story of more woe,/ Than this of Juliet and her Romeo."