Oh
Rosaline, Rosaline, where art thou? Whatever happened to you? Last
time I heard from you, you were going to dismiss or forsake love for
the cold arms of a monastery. You refused the tender loving heart and
open arms of a determined and passionate lover like Romeo and decided
instead to lock yourself up in iron vows of chastity.
When
we first hear of Rosaline, it is through the pining mouth of Romeo.
In fact, she never physically appears, but it seems that some of the
characters know her or rather know of her. Romeo's love is no
unspoken secret. His pain is known; by his friends and family members
it is often judged as futile or even frowned upon. Romeo, a young
man, seems like Antony of old who had lost his heart, mind, and soul
to the object of his affections, namely Cleopatra, and some used to
label this type of behavior as effeminate in those battle-hardy
times.
It
is this heart-ache that drives Romeo to mask and show himself among
the hated Capulets in thirst of a quick glimpse of Rosaline's
beautiful face. Instead, as correctly predicted by Benvolio, he meets
a beauty much fairer than chaste Rosaline, and even Romeo himself
foreswears his previous love for this new, young and enchanting
Juliet. This beautiful love-interest is indeed herself interested in
love, and so Romeo's amorous feelings are reciprocated for a change.
There
are a few things I would like to observe here. First, Romeo's change
of heart seems rather quick. We get the feeling he has been in love
with Rosaline for sometime (though admittedly not that long) and one
quick view of Juliet seems to be sufficient to banish all those
thoughts and feelings. Either Romeo's love for Rosaline was superficial
in the first place, or his feelings can turn from one person to
another in a wink, hence also lacking depth and substance. In fact,
whenever Romeo talks about love thereafter, many, for instance, Friar
Lawrence, assume he is still referring to Rosaline.
Also,
the circumstances surrounding Juliet, her position and perhaps her
age, may make it an obstacle for Romeo to mention her explicitly, and
he confides his secret only to a select few; Friar Lawrence is one of
them, as he is deemed instrumental in orchestrating their happiness,
which, as tragedies are wont to do, unfortunately and uncontrollably
turns into its bleak opposite.
But
were Romeo's feelings for Rosaline real
after all? How could they be replaced so quickly and without a trace?
Does Romeo really love and feel affection for others, or is it merely
an abundant expression of his own infatuation with the mere idea of
love?
It
occurs to me that Romeo longs for an abstract and ideal love, which
may be inspiring; however, once this craving is fully achieved and
exhausted, it will leave him empty. He perhaps, if only on a
subconscious level, realizes that Rosaline is indeed completely out
of his reach. Of course, he could continue loving her with his
boundless adoration, but over time, the situation may become
monotonous and cumbersome.
That does not mean that it cannot be done;
many have idealized love to a degree that in fact the consummation of
the relationship would actually do harm to those idealistic feelings.
This is the type of pure love that poets select and safeguard for
their muses, such as Dante's Platonic affections for Beatrice.
But
Romeo needs more fodder for his love to burn, and Juliet perfectly
fills that void and fits the bill. She loves him, which gives him
hope; their situation is difficult and dangerous, which fuels his
passion. It might be no coincidence that he vehemently falls in love
with those who are from his enemies' families, hence ignoring women
from his own group and clan. But should this love be fully
reciprocated and consummated and were it to end happily
ever after,
it would lead to the withdrawal of love.
It
seems that most comedies end at the point of marriage, and if they
did continue afterwards, it would become a “tragedy.” In the epic
prototype-romance Titanic,
Jack and Rose have to die for their love in order to rescue it, and for it to
remain fully intact and vibrant. Had they married and had children, i.e. fall
into the trap of conventional married life, their passion may have
dried up, as was interestingly demonstrated or insinuated upon by Sam
Mendes' Revolutionary
Road.
There Mendes chose to portray, à la Bergman's devastating Scenes
of a Marriage,
the slow decay and eventual destruction of a marriage. It was no
coincidence to have contracted and reunited in Revolutionary Road both actors who had once
played Jack and Rose. Revolutionary
Road
is like a what-if scenario of a love after marriage, an alternate
version of the movie Titanic
presenting
us what would have happened had the couple survived together.
This
may sound bitter - unlike Bergman, I would not revel in the fact that
divorce rates may increase after this post, nor do I dissuade anyone
from getting married here - but I am just showing that such
idealistic love may have little in common with reality and that our
mundane, day-to-day existence may beat away at those crystallized
feelings. And in this context, for their love to survive, Shakespeare
had notably no other choice but to kill them off and have them
reunite after death, similar to Titanic centuries later. Ironically, it is their joint and tragic
death for love that makes their love worthwhile and timeless.
At
the same time, there is hidden criticism of this type of blind love.
Both of these characters put their and other people's lives in danger
due to their ill-fated and doomed romance. It seems that both, but,
in particular, Romeo, are so in love with the idea of love that they
are ready to sacrifice themselves for it. Put differently, they think
that they cannot survive without the other person's love and / or
existence leading to the double suicides.
Yet
such feelings may not be real
or grounded in reality to begin with. In fact, Rosaline and Juliet
may be interchangeable after all. I am reminded of the lines of
Kazantzaki's Last
Temptation of Christ,
where the so-called guardian angel tells Jesus that in the world
there is only one woman but many faces. The essence of femininity is
one and is represented or refracted in different individual women.
This,
obviously, reduces the status, worth and dignity of women. By
believing them to be supernatural entities, a petrified figment of
our idealized imagination or even goddesses, we of the male species
will never feel content with what we find in real life. Since we
overlook their humanity, we see any supposed flaws as a denial or
rejection of our lofty and unrealistic desires.
It is similar to
Kundera's disappointing realization that women are the same as men,
with bodies like machines that will rot and smell and that will go to
the bathroom etc. The idealization of women that puts the beautiful
sex on a pedestal will also turn them into unattainable objects.
Ironically,
the idea of interchangeability was expressed in Juliet's speech on
what is in a name. She famously states that a rose is a rose but
would smell as sweet by any other name. In fact, the meaning of
Rosaline's name is rose.
To say that any other name would become the same thing may be
alluding to the fact that Romeo has simply replaced the rose
with another flower, Rosaline with Juliet. But the end effect is
still the same: one woman, many faces.
What
may be seen as a tragic love story is indeed tragic, but for
different reasons. Their love may have been too heedless and blind to
lead to any sort of lasting happiness. Juliet cannot be really blamed
as she is young and full of romance and ideals appropriate to her
age, let us not forget that she is barely fourteen.
The
blame should fall on Romeo who has not only seduced this young woman,
but who has been pursuing a type of love we mostly read about in
novels; all this time, he is driven by his sense of passion and
excitement. Such love is ill-fated and doomed to begin with, and it
would have been better had he stayed with Rosaline who would not have
requited his love and, as a result, not put herself or other people's
lives in danger.
No comments:
Post a Comment