The death of Romeo and Juliet is questioned due to their young age and the modern perspective of suicide. However, their deaths serve the plot as they cannot be together and it fits the expectations of Elizabethan tragedy. There is debate about teaching the play to impressionable teenagers.
Many wonder why Romeo and Juliet should end with the death of the title characters. Looking at the plot from a modern light, it is more than tragedy if a 13 year old girl and a 15 year old boy commit suicide. A newspaper reporting such news would probably call it horror, not tragedy. There are actually several reasons why characters must die, some integral to the plot and some serving the nature of Elizabethan drama.
Plot-wise, Romeo and Juliet do not initially intend to commit suicide. In fact, the goal is to fake their deaths so they can escape and continue their married life, since they got married in Act II.
Their respective families would not support their marriage due to the Montague/Capulet feud, so there is no way their marriage would be supported or recognized by the families. Juliet threatens to kill herself if the friar fails to find a plausible solution.
It is true that Romeo and Juliet are quite young, but in Shakespeare’s day they would have been considered of marriageable age. However, the playwright probably had the good sense to realize that even a married 13-year-old is still a 13-year-old. The couple can only see things through their own perspective and have had neither wisdom nor tolerance. The death of both feels like the end of the world for both characters. Both believe they cannot live if one of the two characters dies. So, technically they don’t have to die to serve the plot, but they choose to die, because they’re young and foolish and in love.
Another reason for the death of Romeo and Juliet is based on expectations of the Elizabethan drama. In general, such drama was divided into two categories: comedy and tragedy. Comedy ends in marriage and tragedy in death. Writing a tragedy that didn’t culminate in death wouldn’t fit the genre. Therefore, Romeo and Juliet must die as Shakespeare was writing a tragedy. If he had written a play, they would have gotten married and their families probably would have reconciled.
There remains a debate about whether to teach the game to middle school children. It’s often the first Shakespeare play children read, but with many suicide pacts in modern times, some consider teaching impressionable teenagers the game to woo disaster. In response, many teachers are now looking to other works that express Shakespeare’s genius but are less likely to be imitated by young teenagers.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
