B-b-b-bird Bird Bird, Bird is the Word

1984. Select a line or so of poetry, or a moment or scene in a novel, epic poem, or play that you find especially memorable. Write an essay in which you identify the line or the passage, explain its relationship to the work in which it is found, and analyze the reasons for its effectiveness.

            Speaking from experience, it is incredibly easy to forget things. Names, faces, birthdays, mathematical formulas, atomic numbers, phone numbers, and appointment times are all things that slip through the cracks in the human mind. It is far more interesting to consider what makes things stick, and how people remember things. In general, for something to be memorable, it needs to hold emotional weight or personal relevance. The brain doesn’t hold on to details it finds unimportant, no matter how much easier life would be. Storage space is limited, so when a line from a work sticks in deeply, it must be highly relevant. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet has worked its way into the memory of Western culture, but the lines exchanged between the two lovers as Romeo departs after wooing Juliet on her balcony are especially memorable because they serve not only to characterize the pair, but also to heavily foreshadow their fate.

            The average person could probably recite ‘parting is such sweet sorrow…’ but in this case, the lines directly preceding it are far more interesting:

ROMEO: I would I were thy bird

JULIET:             Sweet, so would I.

Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing.

They are exchanged at an emotionally weighted moment. Juliet and Romeo have just declared their love for each other, and as Juliet is constantly interrupted and fluttering back and forth, their farewell is extended for quite some time. The audience softens to the lovers as they exchange passionate words of love and devotion, but these words also do much to establish their eventual doom, as well as the reasons that doom is inevitable.

            First and foremost, the phrase ‘kill thee with much cherishing’ is a massive clue that everything will not go smoothly for our star-crossed lovers. It is grim language for a thirteen year old girl, and highly introspective at that. Having just agreed to marry him, Juliet suddenly expresses fear that she would love him so much, as a spoiled child loves its pet bird, that she would kill him because of it. They are also her parting words to him- a warning- that he should not trust her, or that her emotions will come to be too strong. Romeo answers, to nobody, a wish for her to sleep and be at peace, which is eerily reminiscent of his own ultimate fate when Juliet’s fake sleep takes on the appearance of death (or, eternal peace) and leads him to his death so as to join her in it- another sentiment expressed in this grim farewell.

            Romeo’s tendency to variance and mood swings has already been established by the time this scene arrives, but this scene is still an instrumental indicator that he is far too headstrong for his own good. Having met and kissed Juliet once previously, he sneaks in to his enemy’s territory, and proposes to marry her, professing his undying love. However, the fashion in which he does it says much about who he is- for example, swearing his love on the moon, which (as Juliet is quick to point out) is ever changing, and often used as an excuse for reckless and crazy behavior. He also shows a slavish devotion to Juliet, throwing himself totally at her feet, notably expressed by his wish to be her pet bird, completely on her string and ruled by her entirely. The balcony scene paints Romeo for what he is- a young boy who is completely ruled by his emotions. He is ruled not only by his own whims, but by those of his lady-love, coming at her call and vowing to stay until she dismisses him.

            Juliet, for her part, is established as the more practical one, demanding that Romeo ‘swear not by the moon’ and worrying that she will seem too forward and he will loose his interest in her because she will not play games with him. She is also the one, in the end, to suggest he marry her if his love is true and faithful- ensuring her own security. Sadly, she falls to Romeo’s charms and turns to his whimsy, her initial fears of everything being too sudden transforming into a proposal of marriage and the same silver tongued adulation that Romeo uses so often. Juliet’s practicality could partially be explained by the location of this exchange. If she is caught with a man in her room, with her at night unchaperoned, the consequences for her would be devastating. While Romeo is unbothered by the risk, Juliet does much of the concealing, and more worrying than Romeo ever had. It is she, after all, who delivers the death stroke of foreshadowing “I should kill thee with much cherishing.” With that line alone, she reveals her own introspective abilities, and a clearer eye to the future than Romeo.

            Of course, from the beginning of the narrator’s introduction to ‘fair Verona’ the audience knows the fate of Romeo and Juliet, but there are still clues sprinkled throughout the play that the pair is doomed. Without those intermittent hints, the play would not have survived as a piece of literature, because it would have bored audiences to tears. A fated death is tragic, but one in which the reasons are evident is also interesting and memorable. While Shakespeare could have left all of the explanation and subtle reasoning out of his play, and attributed it all to fate, he was wise enough to see that clever characterization and beautiful language would also be necessary to make not only the balcony scene, but Romeo and Juliet as a whole, worthy of remembrance.