An Editorial Letter

Hi guys. I was asked in this essay to explain a couple of major themes in the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. This is all I've got. Please tell me what you think of this piece, whether it'll be a rebuttal to one of my points, or something confusing about my language or literary figures. Thank you, I really appreciate all of your comments!

June 4th, 1939

Dear Editor,

I would like to discuss the matter of book burning. Please realize I’m not in lieu of a not unattractive idea that you would print this letter in your next issue. I think that the concept of book burning is foul at the root because it popularizes and corrupts our country. Only last week our local youth group went around our neighborhood and examined our households with the intention of collecting “degenerate” literature; they took away such classic works, as of Albert Einstein, Vicki Baum, Bertolt Brecht, Heinrich Heine, Helen Keller, Thomas Mann, Karl Marx, Erich Maria Remarque, Frank Wedekind, H.G. Welles, and of many other authors, to be undermined in the public square. I can only agree with the words of Heine, I quote: “Where books are burned, in the end, people will burn.” I understand that our nation is under reform right now, and that many of its people would like to see our culture pure and free of old-fashioned influences, but this belief is not an excuse to banning and destroying all of the world’s culture to have an effect on our future progress; in my opinion, we can very well learn from these timeless articles that once proved that civilization existed - after all, they survived ages for a reason. The themes spoken of in every written masterpiece are relevant to our own world as well, and they may teach us the mistakes we might otherwise intend to do in the future. That’s why I think it is important for our growing nation to learn from others before it’s going to make its first baby steps into the threshing European society. Please don’t judge the letter just by its author; I honestly believe that this idea of book burning might get to the best of our people, if owning such literature would be unspoken of even in the intelligencia. This idea might have drastic consequences, if not opposed, and alas, I would like to support the opposition. Even though the magnum opuses of Shakespeare are not at risk (cross your fingers), I would like to speak towards one of his particular works, Romeo and Juliet, to show you how the themes discussed in this play are ultimately relevant to this day. Shall I commence?

Human tendencies have been known to be rather aggressive. We use violence to counteract passive and unproductive anger and pursue conflict, it is an antidote to humiliation and shame, it is the means to express ourselves when we feel that our self-worth is lessened by others; by the way of nature, we are nothing but prideful and pompous animals, who follow their instincts, rather than reason. Reason never did follow passion - hatred, love, endurance, sufferance, desire - all of those things are unique to their expression, perhaps because there is none. What does violence mean to you? Boston massacre, Beslan massacre, Bloody Sunday - how many will there be? On the contrary, in the play, Friar Laurence, being a holy man, knew that the answer to this question would be too many. He attempted at ending the bloody vendetta between the Montagues and the Capulets because the victims to this feud were the innocent and the unknowing. In his own words, “In one respect I’ll thy assistant be; / For this alliance may so happy prove / To turn your households’ rancor to pure love,” (p. 89, lines 98-100). Friar Laurence intended that if this heavenly matrimony meant anything for the Montagues and the Capulets, they both would accept the truth and live in the present, forgetting the past for the wellness of others in the future. By the end of this play, it as if seemed that only the death of our two characters, a fact which made their love immortal and undeniable, would produce the satisfying results. The sacrifice of humankind in order to have peace is by the way of having violence, a cost, which shall impress the feudalists of its significance. The more of ignorance, the more costly the sacrifice would turn out in sum. After all, many people were murdered as a result of quarrels between the two households, but only Romeo’s and Juliet’s sincere and pure sacrifice to be one whole, despite death, impressed both the Montagues and the Capulets because it was their own “joys”, their own children. They don’t care how many children died when they were drawn into the numerous quarrels throughout the plot, and yet, they care for their own. Aristotle had stated this known truth long before any of this has happened, “We make war that we may live in peace.”

Violence is blind. Both the Capulet and the Montague households had no remembrance of how the feud originally started between the two families; the cause was so obscure that it was never mentioned in the play. Does it matter? I remember that my mum used to slap my thighs to punish me even if I didn’t do anything wrong. If there was any trouble at all, especially involving other people, she would slap me because it was her way of telling me that it was both our faults, my friends’ and my own. She didn’t care who caused the quarrel or why, it was nothing short of nuisance. She was a strange woman, my mum.

Violence begets violence - blood for blood, as the old saying goes. As seen in the play, Tybalt was led by his uncontrolled anger into a condition, in which he refutes reason and goes against peace. He allegedly said, “What, drawn, and talk of peace? I hate the word / As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee. / Have at thee, coward!” (p. 15, lines 72-74). In Act III, when Tybalt slays Mercutio, Romeo, who until that point attempted to break the fight, swears to kill the killer on his honor. This inevitable event results in Romeo’s banishment from Verona, which causes, ultimately, his death and the death of Juliet when time turns against them. What price will we have to pay?

There are too many ideas and themes covered in this play so they could be listed off all at once. Some of these topics, however, include the representations of: a love triangle, love as a fateful and an undeniable power, state versus individual social frames and desires (also encompassed by Antigone of Sophocles), youth versus age, Christian religion and its view on suicide, Pyramus and Thisbe storyline, dramatic foil characters, paradox, death as a way of immortalizing love, and duality of human nature and other phenomena, most importantly. The latter example is especially fruitful because it can feature many interpretations throughout the play and in real life. The duality of human nature can signify change, although it also can be thought of as a natural law that is expressed in all possible phenomena without any reason. Shakespeare’s work spins this concept against a cliché of suicide; articulates the paradox using light and dark imagery (a night and day metaphor), poison, mixed from innocent herbs which form a harmful substance under human pressure, and emotion and passion, such as love and hatred, heaviness and lightheartedness, rejection and absolution.

First of all, suicide has always been portrayed as a sin and a thing to be ashamed of - seen this way by religion and by our society. This cliché probably had its rise from the fact that most people committed suicide because they were afraid to live. Here is what Charles Caleb Colton had to say on this issue: “Suicide sometimes proceeds from cowardice, but not always; for cowardice sometimes prevents; since as many live because they are afraid to die, as [many] die because they are afraid to live.” In another play, Antigone, this concept of suicide was seen as a way of preserving honor and dignity of an innocent person - Antigone, exercising a righteous intent, buried her brother so he could be accepted into the Underworld, despite her state government’s wishes. She was persecuted and locked in a vault. There, she killed herself so she would be immortalized and remembered for her innocence and steel virtue. In Romeo and Juliet, completing suicide was a form of honor as well, in which two lovers’ souls were reunited in heaven because their love on earth was poisoned by the society and by human nature’s conflict. In another book, Master and Margarita, Voland granted yet another two lovers a gift of peace so they could caress and wallow in their love for each other, stuck somewhere in-between heaven and hell. Master’s and Margarita’s love and passion for all the beautiful was destroyed by an emerging Soviet society. All these works demonstrate a common theme, in which suicide is the highest of all privileges, per se, that puts the beauty of passion on a timeless pedestal. On page 147, Shakespeare mentions Romeo’s words, “O tell me, friar, tell me, / In what vile part of this anatomy / Doth my name lodge? Tell me, that I may sack / The hateful mansion,” (lines 121-124). This quote tells me that Romeo is ready to take on an extreme course of events if only he could clear his name of violence, and hence, love Juliet without being persecuted. What measures will our country take to stain its name? It doesn’t take a lot.

Light and dark metaphorical imagery has also been popular in Shakespeare’s language. He tells of night as a blanket over true identity’s secrets, which are being naturally revealed in the darkness. Romeo says on page 157, “Nor that is not the lark whose notes do beat / The vaulty heaven so high above our heads. / I have more care to stay than will to go. / Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so. / How is’t, my soul? Let’s talk; it is not day,” (lines 21-25). Both Romeo and Juliet can express themselves freely, considering that it is not a day yet, when Romeo would have to go into hiding in Mantua. However, realizing that Romeo would be killed if somebody saw him at the dawn of day, Juliet denies the truths of the night and urges her beloved to go, asking him to find safety in his banishment. I used to know this girl, Anne, before I moved into this village, who told me a Russian folklore piece: a mean crocodile once decided to swallow the sun. He hid it in his belly, enjoying its gentle warmth and light. The sun meant everything to him since everything revolved around the sun. That’s how important the sun was. However, other dwellers of the wood, where the crocodile lodged, didn’t like what he did because there was no more light or warmth left for them. There was no difference between night and day; the dwellers sought of a way to return back their sun. They reached into the crocodile’s belly, and pulled out the precious weight to restore the life’s balance once again. Eventually, as time passed, everyone found their place under the sun.

I see I was carried away. I would like to finish this off with the words of Omar Khayyam, who was a Persian poet in the late 11th century:

Good and evil, our moral prison,

Joy and sorrow passing like season,

Fate in the way of logic and reason

Is the victim of far worse treason.

Everyone knows that good had always won over the evil. But will there be an exception? Two exceptions? Three? How many does it take to mean something to you? How many books and the thoughts contained in them are needed to be burnt so you could feel the difference? How many lives? Seventeen million?

I just don’t understand why all this violence needs to happen in the first place. I haven’t done anything to you, my people didn’t either. I don’t think anybody is pure and never will be because our culture, our religion, our life is so interconnected and dependent on each other. If we will die, so will you.

With respect,

Meyer Feldstein

This letter was not published, for some odd reason. After two and a half weeks of waiting, the boy - now a man - left his home and disappeared like he has never existed. He never came back. He didn’t have anything else to say.

It is often said that the most honest truths come from the lips of a child.

- Russian proverb