Davis 1

Mr. Justin Thompson

English Language Arts 9 Honors
11 Febuary 2022
Adolescence

In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare shows Juliet’s innocence from childhood giving away
into the tribulation and terror of growing up in order to show that good can change to bad in an
eyeblink. In the beginning of the play, Juliet was just a girl, a girl that had so innocently fallen in
love with the wrong boy. As the play progresses, she begins to see the hardships that she must
face as she rapidly matures over the course of the play. Her journey towards adulthood though,
begins at a party.

In the beginning of the play, we see Juliet’s innocence shine through and start her on the
path of tribulation. When Romeo first speaks to Juliet, she says “Good Pilgrim, you do wrong
your hand too much, which mannerly devotion is this; for saints hands that pilgrims’ hands do
touch, and palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.” This is Romeo the son of their sworn enemy’s
that she is talking to to, and what does she do? She flirts with him, her innocence of childhood is
shown by her at this time. She doesn’t know the tribulation and pain it will cause her if she goes
along with Romeo, and the way their families will react. Later that night, once she learns of
Romeo’s identity, Juliet says to herself on her balcony “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou
Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name. Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I’ll
no longer be a Capulet.” She so inoccenly declares that she will disavow herself from her
family, just to be with Romeo. This blind love shows her innocence of not thinking about the
consequences of her actions. This is the same innocence that gets her and Romeo in so much
trouble.

As the play progresses, we see Juliet deal with the tribulation of adolescence and we see
 Davis 2

her mature because of it. Romeo and Juliet are married the next night after their meeting, and a
few days later, disaster strikes, Juliet’s cousin, Tybalt, kills Romeo’s best friend Mercucio, and
in revenge Romeo kills Tybalt. This is where Juliet’s trials start to begin. Her Blind innocent
love is what got Tybalt killed, for Romeo didn’t want to fight him because of Romeo’s live to
Juliet, and instead of Romeo or Tybalt dying, Mercucio does. Juliet and Romeo’s love gets two
people killed, Mercucio and Tybalt, two people that are both very close to either Romeo or
Juliet. After Romeo kills Tybalt, he gets banished to Mantra, another city away from Verona.
After a needlestly risky plan, made by Friar Laurence, goes terribly wrong Juliet finds her love
dead beside her in a tomb, and in her grief she stabs herself and dies next to her love. This is the
ultiment trial that Juliet had to experience, the death of her love, and she couldn’t handle it. All
of this tibulation was started with her innocence.

Juliet’s innocence is what caused all of this tradedy to happen. When Juliet fell in love
with Romeo, her innocence in this act causes pain and suffering for everyone around her. After
their marriage, Romeo gets his best friend killed in the name of love, and Juliet’s cousin dies as
well, all because Romeo didn’t want to fight because of Juliet. This contributes to the play as a
whole because it shows us the true theme of this play, humor and tragedy, good and bad, bliss
and misery, they can switch in a blink of an eye. We see this as Romeo’s and Juliet’s wedding
day, a day of bliss turns to misery as people die around them in an blink of an eye. Juliets
innocence turns into tribulation in her adolescence, and turned bliss to misery.