Romeo and Juliet

Famous as a tale about two “star-crossed” lovers, Romeo and Juliet is equally a tale about weaknesses in human nature, family structure and social order. Shakespeare poses troublesome questions about why these brilliant children miscarried on the way to adulthood. While the fate of these young lovers may have hung in the stars, the real tragedy lies the number of ways in which things might have turned out better, and didn’t. One after the other, the social institutions that should have rescued them (family, church and ultimately the state) fail them because of a preoccupation with war elsewhere.