This scene starts with Romeo pondering over his love for Juliet, under her own balcony. He is fantasizing over how much he loves her and compares her to the sun. He uses the phrase “Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon. The moon is already sick and pale with grief.” Where Juliet is the sun, and looks up to Juliet as his one and only beacon in life that gives him a reason to live. The moon represents Rosaline, whom Romeo is currently in a relationship with. He then wants the Sun (Juliet) to kill the envious moon (Rosaline), because he thinks he has found his one and true love. Juliet then starts to talk about Romeo, while on her balcony. Juliet asks herself why Romeo is Romeo. “O, Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” She then asks why she currently is in a feud and why the love of her life is her sworn enemy. Then Romeo interrupts her to explain how he would drop his own name if it meant he could be together with Juliet. They both agree to lose their names and flee from this family feud. They also agree to marry.
Though It’s been explained a few of the symbols in the paragraph above (I hope they count), the explanations can be furthered. When Juliet is pondering over why Romeo is Romeo, she compares Romeo to a rose. If a rose wasn’t called a rose, it would still smell the same, and look the same. Thereby, if Romeo ran away with Juliet, and dropped his name, he would still be the same person as before. As mentioned above, the use of symbolism to describe Romeo’s love for Juliet is the Sun. He also describes the beauty of her eyes by comparing them to the two brightest stars in the sky being replaced by her own, just because they shone so beautifully. Though the protagonists are extremely one-dimensional, they are blinded with love, which ruins their character, love here is much overused. Romeo uses religious comparisons. He describes Juliet as a “Bright Angel” and “Dear Saint”. This means that their love is very pure and is true love. The use of shading (nighttime and Juliet being the sun) is a way to describe a sort of “break” from the raging feud between their families.
When it comes to comparing Romeo and Juliet’s personalities, they have some aspects in common. They are both risk-takers. Romeo in particular. In both earlier and later acts, he enter fights with Capulets unnecessarily (some fights) and Juliet agreed with Friar Lawrence’s plan to ingest the poison. And they both agreed to escape this war-of-sorts. But they have some things that they don’t have in common, like Juliet being a gracious and elegant lady, though she’s only 13 years old. And Romeo is a masculine fellow. Drinking with his friends and being a pretty good swordsman. Though they were not very alike, they were meant for each other.
“Love challenges social values and morals” is a phrase which fits very well into this love story. Juliet, as well as Romeo, have many expectations, and meeting each other in private was outrageous at the time and not socially accepted at all. It was all about status. And they both decided to leave their names and expectations behind for their own love. Their decision to leave everything and everyone behind was very stupid and very bold. The phrase mentioned above is the perfect example of Romeo and Juliet. They are dependent on their social values and morals for survival in the society, but their love drove them away from all of that, so that they could stop focusing on status, and start focusing on each other.