Romeo and Juliet is a play about the conflict between the main characters’ love, with its transformative power, and the darkness, hatred, and selfishness represented by their families’ feud. The two teenaged lovers, Romeo and Juliet, fall in love the first time they see each other, but their families’ feud requires they remain enemies. Over the course of the play the lovers’ powerful desires directly clash with their families’ equally powerful hatred of each other. Initially, we may expect that the lovers will prove the unifying force that unites the families. Were the play a comedy, the families would see the light of reason and resolve their feud, Romeo and Juliet would have a public wedding, and everyone would live happily ever after. But the Montague-Capulet feud is too powerful for the lovers to overcome. The world of the play is an imperfect place, where freedom from everything except pure love is an unrealistic goal. Ultimately, the characters love does resolve the feud, but at the price of their lives
