The Tragedy of Extreme Loyalties in “Romeo & Juliet”

Loyalty is widely accepted as noble and desirable. It is necessary in virtually all types of relationships, from close relationships like friendship or marriage, to broader relationships, like those between cousins in a family or those between a country and its citizens. Loyalty plays an important role in many important relationships, and Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet gives different examples of different kinds of loyalty. But while loyalty is an admirable trait and often brings many heartfelt rewards, Shakespeare’s play of Romeo and Juliet shows that loyalty taken to extremes can bring conflict and tragedy.

Tybalt demonstrates that extreme, unreasoning loyalty to family can lead to unreasonable anger and deadly conflict. Tybalt’s unreasonable anger at finding Romeo at his family’s feast was based on nothing more than a feeling of extremely unreasoning loyalty to his own Capulet family. The Capulet and Montague families had some vague, unremembered disagreement years ago, and nobody could even remember what it was all about. So the bad feeling between the two families was just out of unreasoning loyalty, nothing else. Tybalt Capulet had no quarrel with Romeo Montague as a person, only that Romeo was an unreasonably hated Montague crashing the Capulet family party. Now, party crashing can reasonably be irritating, but surely it’s unreasonable to propose the extreme of death as a consequence for it.

For his extreme, unreasonable loyalty of friendship to Romeo, Mercutio unwisely began the conflict of a duel and suffered the ultimate consequence. When Tybalt insults Romeo, Mercutio loyally stands up for Romeo, his best friend. But he goes to extremes in his loyalty by dueling Tybalt, which ends in his own death and, eventually, Romeo’s as well. Without Mercutio’s death, Romeo would not have slain Tybalt in angry, thoughtless loyalty and would not have been banished, which led to both his and Juliet’s deaths. Nothing but tragedy came out of Mercutio’s unreasonable, extreme loyalty of friendship.

Capulet’s extreme expectations of family loyalty created conflict, pain, and tragedy within his family. Capulet saw family loyalty as complete obedience and expected Juliet and the whole family to do exactly as he says. When Juliet initially refuses to marry Paris as Capulet has arranged, he is outraged by her disobedience and reacts with threatening and hurtful remarks to Juliet. When Lady Capulet and Nurse both try to calm him down and stand up for Juliet, Capulet sees that as further disobedience and disloyalty—worse, actually: treason!—and a broadening of his conflict with Juliet. Lady Capulet lives in fear of his anger, Nurse no longer respects him, and Juliet’s feelings for Romeo grow to the point where she feels her only escape is death. Had her father been more reasonable and understanding and not expected absolute obedience and loyalty, Juliet would have been anxious, but not suicidal.

Romeo and Juliet’s extreme loyalty to each other, not to family, creates the final irrational tragedy. Juliet was so loyal to Romeo that she faked her own death just so she could be with him and get out of marrying Paris. This meant giving up her family, her friends, and her entire life. Even though she was somewhat forced into that position, it was still an irrational act. Romeo makes it worse by killing himself on seeing what he thinks is Juliet’s dead body. His loyalty was so extreme and irrational that he wanted to join her in death. Both deaths are irrational tragedies—they didn’t have to happen. While pressure from both their families drove them to their final deadly decisions, it was their extreme, irrational loyalty to each other that caused the tragic deaths of Romeo and Juliet.

In Shakespeare’s play of Romeo and Juliet, there were many instances of extreme loyalty, and all contributed to conflict and tragic death. Loyalty to one’s family or to one’s lover is always important. Still, if even just one of the instances of extreme loyalty and expectations of loyalty in Romeo and Juliet had been reasonable and healthy, the lives of two young lovers would have been spared, not to mention the lives of Tybalt and Mercutio. Extreme, unreasonable, irrational loyalty can produce tragic and even deadly results, as this play so entertainingly demonstrates. Will we emotionally foolish humans ever learn to be reasonable and rational?