Throughout Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare, there is an overlaying presence of the typical roles that men and women were supposed to play. During Elizabethan times there was a major difference between the way men and women were supposed to act. Men typically were supposed to be masculine and powerful, and defend the honor. Women, on the other hand, were supposed to be subservient to their men in their lives and do as ever they wished. In Romeo and Juliet the typical gender roles that men and women were supposed to play had an influence on the fate of their lives. The beginning of Act one opens with a brawl in the street between the servants of the Capulets and the Montagues.
When Romeo sees Juliet for the first time, he is struck by her beauty and breaks into a sonnet. The imagery Romeo uses to describe Juliet gives important insights into their relationship. Romeo initially describes Juliet as a source of light, like a star, against the darkness: "she doth teach the torches to burn bright! It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night." As the play progresses, a cloak of interwoven light and dark images is cast around the pair. The lovers are repeatedly associated with the dark, an association that points to the secret nature of their love because this is the time they are able to meet in safety. At the same time, the light that surrounds the lovers in each other's eyes grows brighter to the very end, when Juliet's beauty even illuminates the dark of the tomb. The association of both Romeo and Juliet with the stars also continually reminds the audience that their fate is "star-cross'd."
Romeo believes that he can now distinguish between the artificiality of his love for Rosaline and the genuine feelings Juliet inspires. Romeo acknowledges his love was blind, "Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight / For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night."
Romeo's use of religious imagery from this point on — as when he describes Juliet as a holy shrine — indicates a move towards a more spiritual consideration of love as he moves away from the inflated, overacted descriptions of his love for Rosaline.