Romeo and the Impact of Mercutio's Death

Romeo and Juliet is one of the most well known stories ever written. Shakespeare had know idea just how famous this play would become years after he was dead. Romeo and Juliet has had countless   essays written about it but few to none of them have covered the angle I will discuss in this paper. It is my belief that Romeo loved Mercutio, as his best friend, as much as he loved Juliet. Romeo may have had a greater love for Juliet but had Mercutio not been killed romeo would not have taken his own life.

First I must establish that Romeo did love both of them, Juliet first. Romeo\'s actions at the Party in the Capulet mansion prove that he loves her, in a way, more that he does his family and friends, because he pays no attention to them after he first lays eyes on Juliet. Romeo spends the entire party with Juliet and neglects his family and friends. Even after the party when he knows that she is of the house on Capulet and his cousins and friends are leaving Romeo still pursues Juliet when the party is over and talks to her beneath her windowsill. When Juliet is talking to her-self romeo overhears her as she utters this:

Juliet: Take [Romeo] and cut him out into little stars, And he will make the face of heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garrish sun. (III.ii.23-6)

“Here Romeo, transformed into shimmering immortality, becomes the very definition of light, outshining the sun itself. However, despite all the aforementioned positive references to light in the play, it ultimately takes on a negative role, forcing the lovers to part at dawn (Mabillard).”  

Possibly the most evident display of love that Romeo showed was when he stood between Mercutio and Tybalt to stop them from fighting. The situation that the two apposing families were in put them at eachother\'s throats every time their paths crossed. Romeo knew that Tybalt was the cousin of Juliet and so, when Mercutio was...