Jorn Krider

Ms. Price

Honors English I

March 27th, 2018

Romeo and Juliet Familial Love Essay Final Draft

In today’s society, there are four main types of love that exist. Romantic, Platonic,

Familial, and Unrequited. Romantic and Platonic are loves between two unrelated people, but

Romantic is more lovers and Platonic friends. Familial love is between family members or close

beings that are viewed as family. Unrequited love is typically seen as unreturned love. In the

Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, it is very common to associate romantic love being only present.

However, all the loves stated before are shown throughout. The type of love that is most evident

in Romeo and Juliet and in the modern day is familial love, through books and TV shows of

today’s time, as well as back in the elizabethan era of Shakespeare, both having their similarities

and differences.

In the modern day, people express familial love through various forms, for example,

children are typically biased towards parents’ political ideas, parents are sometimes

overprotective of their children, and people naturally feel very close connections to their

families. A once popular TV Show, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Will Smith a.k.a. Fresh Prince

feels lost affection towards his father, who left him when he was very young. When his father

eventually did return to him temporarily, he was very angry and emotional with him. When his

father leaves him soon after, he questions to Uncle Phil “Why me?”, and cries onto Uncle Phil’s

shoulder. This example shows, despite differences a father may have with his son in his early
years, they still grow up to have the father-son bond that cannot be broken. That connection

makes familial love trump over any other type of love because of the fact no other love has those

relationships as a father son does. In a popular book series, Percy Jackson and The Olympians,

Percy’s father is the Greek God Poseidon. Because he is such a godly being and Percy is only a

demigod living in the mortal world, it is very rare for communication to occur. But when he does

it is very indirect, such as sending help through the ocean or sending signals in his dreams. This

shows various forms of familial love, even though the setting is fantasy and mythology. It relates

heavily to modern day examples. Many kids may not see their parents or remember them, but

there is still some sort of trusting, curious, and caring bond set between them. This is also just

another type of way familial love is expressed throughout society. This strong bond between

parental figure and his/her child is shown in Romeo and Juliet as well. Not only do The Fresh

Prince of Bel-Air and Percy Jackson and The Olympians serve as texts that show that bond

between child and parental figure.

Familial love, however, even though prevalent, looks quite different in the story than in

modern day literature. For example, in Romeo and Juliet, the Nurse shows very early on that she

is more connected socially to Juliet than Juliet’s mother is. Quoting this very early on in the text,

“Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.” (Shakespeare. I,3,382). Therefore showing that even

though they are not related at all, they are still close because of what the nurse did for Juliet at a

young age. Another prime example is when Tybalt is at the party in Scene 5 of Act I “This, by

his voice, should be a Montague. Fetch me my rapier boy.” (Shakespeare, I, V, 676-677) During

this, he hears Romeo and wants to immediately kill him because of his driving passion towards

the Capulet name. This proves Tybalt’s heavy bias towards defending the Capulets, making the

only person he would answer to is Lord and Lady Capulet. Familial love during the Elizabethan
era was focused densley on households, and people would war and kill mercilessly because of

being born under a different name. In conclusion, Romeo and Juliet, has varying forms of visible

familial love, like the Nurse’s relationship with Juliet and Tybalt at the party, compared to

modern day.

Comparing the two, there are plentiful differences in familial love, but still present in

both scenarios, despite those differences. For a first example, as stated before, house name.

Tybalt shows this because of when he hears Romeo at the party. Mercutio, however, takes this

very offensively and picks a fight with Tybalt. Even though he is not in the same house as

Romeo, he is considered family to him because of his close bonds to the Montagues. Putting all

of these together, nobody in today’s era would kill others for the throne. But in a modern sense,

they would embrace themselves over the bigger picture, as individualism is much more

embraced as an idea. Another example is when the Nurse shows more care for Juliet than

Juliet’s own mother and father. She arranged her secret wedding, against Lady Capulet’s choice

for her to marry Paris. In modern day, parents are more advising to one’s own choices, but also

more engaged than Juliet’s own parents, making familial love present but not seen the same way.

Therefore making familial love present in both scenarios, whether it be relations with parental

figures or with house name and your pride for it, which in turn is why it is the most superior

example of love out of all of them.

To wrap up, familial love in the end trumps all other types of love throughout Romeo and

Juliet as well as modern day. Familial love means “deep passion towards someone that relates as

a parent does to her child” according to www.dictionary.com. It can be seen every day wherever

you may be. Parents are with their children, close friends are hanging out, but there can even be

arguments between family members. Due to all of the information given, familial love is the
most expressed and most prevalent in modern day examples as well as in The Tragedy of Romeo

and Juliet.
Works Cited Page

“Familial.” Dictionary.com, Dictionary.com, www.dictionary.com/browse/familial?s=t.

“Love.” Dictionary.com, Dictionary.com, www.dictionary.com/browse/love?s=t.

Riordan, Rick, and John Rocco. Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Disney-Hyperion,

2014.

Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Elements of Literature,

Houghton Mufflin

Harcourt, 2005, 788-910.

“The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.” 1996.