Superficial Love: A Triumph of Fire and Powder

Superficial Love: A Triumph of Fire and Powder

Over two thousand years ago, Cleopatra and Antony, a powerful and highly influential couple, fell in love at first sight, but later ended their lives as an act of love and sacrifice due to miscommunication during warfare. Today, there is Tinder, where users judge photos of people and swipe right if they find find those photos appealing. Anyone can create a false identity online, complete with fake pictures, so judging potential dates based on appearance can lead to destructive consequences of disappointment and even physical assault. Love based on physical attraction plays a prevalent role in today’s society as well as history, and it often leads to destruction. Similarly, Romeo and Juliet are a pair of star crossed lovers from two feuding families in Verona, the Montagues and the Capulets. In the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, they fall in love immediately after seeing each other and quickly escalate their romance, ignoring family ties and the risks that come along with it. Through an obsessive lover, a caring cousin, and an insightful friar, Shakespeare reveals that sudden love, created by physical attraction, leads to destruction.

Romeo’s obsessive personality and ever-changing love interests make him a perfect example of how sudden love created by lust leads to destructive consequences. After Romeo first sees Juliet at the Capulets’ party and marvels at her beauty, he wonders if his “heart [loved] till now”. Romeo’s love for Juliet begins suddenly at the moment he lays his eyes upon her. “Forswear it, sight,” Romeo proclaims, “For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night” (1.5.59-60). He dramatically claims that he did not know love until he saw “true beauty”. Romeo’s love is determined by physical appearance and what he sees. Furthermore, Romeo personifies sight by making it forswear his previous love. To forswear is to give up a former habit or belief, and Romeo feels he must give up his previously held ideas of love because seeing Juliet causes him to reevaluate and truly understand love. The final line Romeo delivers, “I ne’er saw true beauty until this night” equates love with an appreciation of physical appearance. He has never loved before because he has never seen anyone as dazzling as Juliet. Her physical appearance causes Romeo to change his devotions, which proves that his love is based solely upon appearance and changes suddenly. Next, Shakespeare uses Romeo to reveal the harmful effects of sudden love through his reckless actions that lead to disastrous results. In addition to ending his life at the end of the play as an act of sacrifice for Juliet and defiance to fate, Romeo demonstrates the destructive nature of sudden love based on physical attraction when he complains that he is “too sore...To soar with [Cupid’s] light feathers...Under love’s heavy burden do I sink” (1.4.19-22). The play on words with the homophones, “soar” and “sore”, prove that love has both immediate soaring highs and painful, sore consequences. Romeo sinks “under love’s heavy burden” and experiences the harmful effects of superficial love during his periods of depression over his unrequited love for Rosaline, a former love that vows to remain unmarried, and once again when he receives news of Juliet’s “death”. After Juliet’s falsified death, Romeo takes his own life as well, which is the ultimate destructive consequence of their sudden love based on physical attraction. Romeo’s harmful actions caused by lust reveal the destructive and sudden nature of love.

Although Benvolio, Romeo’s caring cousin and friend, does not have personal experiences with love and relationships, his strong belief in love being rooted in physical appeal prove Shakespeare’s important theme of love leading to destruction. After Romeo reveals his love for Rosaline, Benvolio advises, “Compare her face with some that I shall show, / And I will make thee think thy swan a crow” (1.3.93-94). His suggestion to compare women’s faces reveals that love is shallow and based only upon appearance. The pun on the word “show” reveals that all aspects of love are visually based, without mention of emotions. In one meaning, Benvolio will show Romeo some beautiful women. In another, comparing and objectifying different women is like watching a show, a truth revealed through what Benvolio says he “shall show”. Shows appeal visually, and they begin and end suddenly, much like the type of love Benvolio believes in. He goes on to describe Romeo’s love as a “swan” that will become a “crow”. Literally, the metaphor means once Romeo “examines other beauties” (1.1.236), a former love will no longer seem so beautiful. The fact that a lover changes quickly from being the object of one’s affection to an ugly crow reveals the inconstant and temporary nature of love. Additionally, Benvolio advises Romeo