In the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, Romeo, one of the main characters, is sad and heart broken at the beginning of the story. He becomes more and more happy as the play progresses. When Romeo meets Juliet, he finds love, but he also finds that life is complicated.  He can’t be with Juliet because their families are strongly against it; the families have a longstanding feud and hate each other.  Romeo believes that his love for Juliet is more important than the family rivalry, but the hate between the two families overcomes their love and the story ends tragically.

In the beginning of the story, Romeo is sad and heart broken.  He loves Rosaline but she does not love him back.  Romeo says, “…it is too rough, too rude, too boist’rous, and it pricks like thorn.”  Romeo is referring to his disappointing experiences with love.  His cousin Benvolio tries to cheer him up but cannot.

 Throughout the story Romeo becomes happy after he meets Juliet at a Capulet party.  The two fall in love at first sight at the party, but because they are from two different feuding families, they have to be secretive.  That night Romeo goes to Juliet’s house and, unknown to her, he hears her pronounce her love for him.  He responds to her, “She speaks.  Oh, speak again, bright angel, for thou art as glorious to this night, in o’er my head, as is a winged messenger of heaven unto the white up-turned wond’ring eyes of mortals that fall back to gaze at him...” Juliet makes Romeo forget about Rosaline but they can’t be together because their families are fighting.  Capulet, Juliet’s father, finds out that Juliet loves Romeo and doesn’t want to marry Paris, her father’s choice for her.  Capulet says to Juliet, “…graze where you will, you shall not house with me.  And you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend.  An you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets, for, by my soul, I’ll ne’er acknowledge thee, nor what is mine shall never do thee good.”  Capulate is very mad and basically kicking Juliet out of the house just because she wanted to marry Romeo.  Both Romeo and Juliet have to defy their parents to be in love.

Romeo believes that the feud between the families is much less important than his love for Juliet.  When Juliet says, “Tis but thy name that is my enemy.  What is Montague? It is nor hand, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man,” Romeo agrees by saying “henceforth I will never be Romeo.”  Here Juliet is explaining how the only enemy she has is her name.  The families are supposed to hate each other because of their names.  Romeo then says he will give up his name if it means he can be with Juliet.

Once Romeo met Juliet he was happy and in love, until he thought Juliet had died.  He took his own life because he couldn’t live without her.  It is not until Romeo and Juliet die for their love that the families realize their feud was meaningless.  The feud had affected everything, but did not change their love for each other.