The Seven Basic Plots - Christopher Booker [137]
What are we to make of tragedies where the central figure or figures are not dark at all? We come finally to two stories where the usual balance of darkness and light between the central figures and the world around them is completely reversed.
Romeo and Juliet
The story of Romeo and Juliet unfolds precisely through the five stages of the tragic cycle. But the great difference between this and all the other tragedies at which we have looked lies in where we see the fundamental split or division which contains the seeds of catastrophe. It is not so much Romeo or Juliet themselves who present us with the spectacle of a'divided self'. The split lies in the great feud dividing their two families. The desire of the hero or heroine is not to promote conflict but to escape from it. In other words, the fault which sets them at odds with those around them lies not in themselves but outside them.
As the play opens we are at once made aware of how deep and combustible is the rift between the Montagues and the Capulets by the casual suddenness with which a brawl between members of the two households breaks out in a Verona street. We are then drawn into the Anticipation Stage as we learn how Romeo is already detached from the conflict by lovesickness. He is actually hoping to gatecrash the Capulets' ball to catch sight of the girl he loves, Rosaline. At the same time the young daughter of the Capulets, Juliet, is being told by her mother that she must bend her thoughts towards marriage, with a young man called Paris. We might almost be in the opening stages of a Comedy, with both hero and heroine headed for the wrong partners. But then, at the ball, they meet, and at once fall in love. They have found their Focus. The height of the Dream Stage quickly follows when they declare their love for each other (the `Balcony scene') and secretly get married under the auspices of the wise old Friar Laurence.
The Frustration Stage begins when the shadow of the great feud intrudes on their love. The hot-tempered young Capulet Tybalt comes looking for Romeo, furious at how he had gatecrashed the ball in disguise. Full of the spirit of love, Romeo has no wish to fight; but when Tybalt kills his friend Mercutio, Romeo is at last infected by the darkness and is drawn into killing Tybalt in reply. It is this dark act which precipitates the fatal conclusion. The frustration of the lovers quickly worsens as Romeo is banished and Juliet's father (in the guise of `unrelenting father') prepares to marry her off to Paris (not knowing, of course, that she is already married).
The Nightmare Stage begins, as Juliet desperately tries to escape from the approaching threat of the false marriage. Friar Laurence masterminds the plan whereby she takes a drug which makes it seem that she is dead. She is taken to the family tomb, with the intention that Romeo will come secretly at night and carry her off. And if this were Comedy, with Juliet merely in eclipse, like those other heroines who feign death, Hermione in A Winter's Tale and Hero in Much Ado, such might be the happy denouement. But here there is to be no `recognition'. The course of deception, once embarked on, leads only to the wrong people being deceived, and misunderstanding becomes fatal. Romeo is led to believe that Juliet is truly dead and commits suicide by her side. She wakes to find that he is dead and follows suit. They achieve their final union only in death.
If this were all there was to the story, we should feel that it had come to a very bleak conclusion indeed, with the forces of darkness triumphant. But, of course, what happens is that the two families, when they learn of the catastrophe, are so appalled that they go collectively through a profound change of heart. Reconciled in mutual grief, they call off their ancient feud. We see how, in their terrible deaths, Romeo and Juliet have redeemed the divided world of Verona, enabling the story to end on an image of wholeness restored and life renewed.
At least Romeo and Juliet could not have been drawn down