Romeo and Juliet essay

1)

Romeo and Juliet have both individual goals and a combined goal in the quest of their love. Romeo’s goal is to find love and Juliet's goal is to be the master of her own fate. Romeo and Juliet both have the goal of being together.

Romeo is a character who is obsessed with love. His love of Rosaline is futile and childish yet he still pursued her to a point of self hurt. This is because he badly wanted to have love. Eventually, he met Juliet and found the love he was looking for. Love for Juliet, who is a Capulet, went against everything he was taught by his family; the Montagues and Capulets were sworn enemies. Simply loving someone was not enough for Romeo, he needed to be loved back. Juliet loved Romeo. Romeo was willing to do anything to protect this love. He lived for one person and that was Juliet. When Romeo heard that Juliet died he went to her tomb to join her because he could not live without her. Romeo found love that was so strong it was worth dying for.

In the story, Juliet’s parents arranged a marriage for her to Paris, a man she barely knew. Juliet did not want to marry Paris. She stated to her mother, “It is an honor I barely dream of.” This didn’t mean she did not think about marriage it means that she did not want to be married to someone without it being her decision. Romeo initiated their relationship and when they were together and Romeo did the majority of the speaking. However Juliet made Romeo profess his love for her and it is she who proposes marriage. She wants more than just a choice of who to marry, she also wants the decision of marriage to be hers. After Romeo and Juliet are secretly married Lord Capulet tries to force Juliet to marry Paris. To avoid this marriage, which is not one of her choosing, Juliet fakes her own death. Juliet and Friar Lawrence have an elaborate plan to reunite her and Romeo. This plan failed and Romeo killed himself at Juliet’s grave. So when Friar Lawrence found Juliet in the tomb he insisted that Juliet hide away in a convent as a nun. Life as a nun would have been too restrictive for Juliet and she has also made the decision to be with her lover Romeo so she killed herself. The choice of suicide is referred to as playing god. By playing god Juliet becomes the true master of her destiny.

When Romeo and Juliet met each other in the Capulet garden they decided to get married. Even though they were from feuding households nothing could keep them apart. When Romeo murdered one of Juliet’s kinsmen she still wanted to be with Romeo. When Romeo died, Juliet’s attraction to Romeo is so strong she killed herself because life is too much to bear without Romeo.

Romeo and Juliet both die but they both succeed in their quest. Romeo found the love he wanted with Juliet. The love he found was so powerful that he died for it. Juliet is not forced into marrying against her will. She determined her own fate with the blade of a dagger. Both Romeo and Juliet died together. Today their names are synonymous the tale of Romeo and Juliet will never be forgotten. Their methods of obtaining the goals were quite extreme and resulted in their deaths.

Revised essay

2) Explore why reactions to the novel The Grapes of Wrath have been so wide ranging.

When a book makes a harsh statement about society there will always be controversy. The Grapes of Wrath is no exception. Upon its release it was banned in school districts across the United States. Yet John Steinbeck received the Pulitzer Prize for his book.

The reason the book was banned was because it contained obscenities. The 1930’s was a more conservative time and swearing in movies and books was very rare. Along with the profanities, the book contained a few sexual references, which was also offensive to the public.

Ranchers in California claimed that the book was full of lies. They also contended that the plight of migrants was not as bad as Steinbeck portrayed. However life was miserable for the Okies, hundreds of thousands of people migrated to California and many of them starved. The ranch owners were cruel; most of the migrant workers were paid about one dollar a day for hard labor. The characters in the novel were fictional people but John Steinbeck based their experiences on research he had done in migrant camps. The book claimed to expose the ranchers for what they really were so they called The Grapes of Wrath obscene and even Communist propaganda.

A congressman from Oklahoma defamed the book calling it despicable and profane. He could not accept that fellow Oklahomans could suffer so greatly and he simply chose not to believe it. Willful ignorance and denial are common reactions to shocking problems.

The book was obviously praised by many. The fact that the Steinbeck won the Pulitzer Prize for the novel shows that many people saw merit in Steinbeck’s work. They were able to see that the book offered much more than profanity and inappropriate situations. They saw the book’s true value as a powerful portrayal of the endurance of the human spirit, the bond of family, and the plight of society’s oppressed and down-trodden.

John Steinbeck in the Grapes of Wrath stirred up a lot of controversy. It said a lot of negative things about ranch owners in California. The ranchers in turn denigrated the book by saying that it was full of lies. The story was brutally honest about the situation that the Okies faced. Some found this profane and others outright denied the facts of the book because it was too much for them to accept. There were those who saw beyond the controversy. They saw that the book was about life and the human condition.