Romeo and Juliet are together in eternity
Apr. 3rd, 2011 11:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethWe didn't listen to 'Don't fear the Reaper' in class, but with the Romeo and Juliet line it at least counts as an intertextual reference to R&J, if not an actual adaptation.
But the line sums up for me the damage R&J did to ideas of romantic love. Instead of living happily ever after their ending transcends mortality, they're together eternally. So romantic!
*washes mouth out*
I quite like living. I think it's a basic prerequisite for getting anything done, including loving someone. Some days I reckon we're All Done once we're dead, most days I believe in some version of reincarnation where we get recycled and forget everything, but either way, extreme lack of possibility for 'together'. (Unless you're Hawkman and Hawkwoman getting reincarnated together eternally, but that's so they can be miserable with watching each other die eternally, so I'm not seeing the extra-romantic there neither.)
And putting R&J into 'Don't fear the Reaper' really distorted the message if they only meant 'don't be afraid of death' because, well, murder and suicide? Not quite the natural cycle thing. So the song is all 'hey, we can be like Romeo and Juliet!' and even if they only meant 'in love even when we die' they're singing about suicide and it's dead creepy. Love that transcends death is a great idea, but love that leads to death is really, really not.
... I like the song. It's unfortunate.
The idea that their suicide leads to eternal love and eternity together is creepy, with an edge of dangerous, especially if it gets into the dominant narrative. Suicide should not be romantic.
So, textual transformation of R&J: Bring some religious context back into it, bring some older intertexts, give it a bit of Dante.
Because they were both suicides, it is possible they're together in eternity: in the wood of suicides. Transformed into thorn trees. Their twisted wooden bodies would stretch out to each other eternally but, this being the place where they suffer forever, they wouldn't ever touch. Or if they did they'd be made of thorns and scratching each other up all the time, making each other bleed. Which seems fairly faithful to the source text there, they messed each other up real good whilst alive. But there's no hugging, there's no being good to each other, there's just eternal suffering where they can see their beloved suffering also, and because of their 'love'.
Or, actually, since Romeo was also a double murderer by then, he wouldn't get to be a tree. He'd be being boiled in the river of blood for eternity. Juliet would still be a tree, alone.
Maybe she would fall at random on the banks of the river, and maybe Romeo wouldn't be in too deep to see her - after all, he's not a tyrant, and they're the ones in it up to their eyebrows. He might not be in very deep at all, two killings. So he could be in the river looking up at her on the bank. Oh, and any time he tries to get out, he gets shot full of arrows by centaurs. Maybe he'd grab on to her thorny branches to try and get closer, her thorns tearing his flesh, his desperate grip pulling bits off her so she bleeds more. Maybe he's spending eternity boiling in some of her blood. That's real romantic.
... I am so morbid some times.
Yeah, I realise a lot of the Inferno is creepy for reasons beyond the obvious horror show, and these art about hell things exist to scare people off doing things, but some art that actually adds up to 'Murder and Suicide: A Bad Idea' is, you know, uncontroversial in its basic statement.
Making it about Romeo and Juliet is likely to get some controversy going again, but I don't see why. Already the play shows things end poorly for them. This just goes on rather longer in the religious view.
I should note I don't personally believe in eternal hell. Transient hell rebirths, maybe, but I also think Earth can provide hells and heavens enough. Basically though I don't see how transient actions can earn you eternal punishment. Murder is the closest to where I could see it. If you believe that life is a once only deal then murder has forever consequences to the victim, so there's more balance in thinking it has forever consequences for the perpetrator too.
Saying suicide leads to eternal hell... anyone who is thinking about it has a whole lot of problems already, and they're not looking to hurt anyone else. Saying they're very bad wrong will go to hell just seems like blaming the victim there. Compassion fail.
If suicide is treated different than murder in the religious judgement, if Juliet gets points off for still being drugged or something, then Romeo still dies with a murder on his hands and blaming it on his victim for pissing him off. If he'd been willing to let himself get arrested and take judgement and sentence and get dead that way, instead of being so hell bent on dying next to already dead Juliet, he'd have only had one murder. So he did wrong and kept doing more wrong. Judgement says he's going to the bad place, but if suicide is in a different category, Juliet would be going elsewhere. That way they're not even together. And he's suffering anyway.
... can't see how that setup can lead to Juliet being happy in heaven though. Seems like she'd suffer either way.
... has anyone noticed this play is depressing?
Really deeply depressing.
How is that bloody romantic?
They die, and I don't see how that could possibly lead to being happy together.
How this got to be the model I do not know.
But the line sums up for me the damage R&J did to ideas of romantic love. Instead of living happily ever after their ending transcends mortality, they're together eternally. So romantic!
*washes mouth out*
I quite like living. I think it's a basic prerequisite for getting anything done, including loving someone. Some days I reckon we're All Done once we're dead, most days I believe in some version of reincarnation where we get recycled and forget everything, but either way, extreme lack of possibility for 'together'. (Unless you're Hawkman and Hawkwoman getting reincarnated together eternally, but that's so they can be miserable with watching each other die eternally, so I'm not seeing the extra-romantic there neither.)
And putting R&J into 'Don't fear the Reaper' really distorted the message if they only meant 'don't be afraid of death' because, well, murder and suicide? Not quite the natural cycle thing. So the song is all 'hey, we can be like Romeo and Juliet!' and even if they only meant 'in love even when we die' they're singing about suicide and it's dead creepy. Love that transcends death is a great idea, but love that leads to death is really, really not.
... I like the song. It's unfortunate.
The idea that their suicide leads to eternal love and eternity together is creepy, with an edge of dangerous, especially if it gets into the dominant narrative. Suicide should not be romantic.
So, textual transformation of R&J: Bring some religious context back into it, bring some older intertexts, give it a bit of Dante.
Because they were both suicides, it is possible they're together in eternity: in the wood of suicides. Transformed into thorn trees. Their twisted wooden bodies would stretch out to each other eternally but, this being the place where they suffer forever, they wouldn't ever touch. Or if they did they'd be made of thorns and scratching each other up all the time, making each other bleed. Which seems fairly faithful to the source text there, they messed each other up real good whilst alive. But there's no hugging, there's no being good to each other, there's just eternal suffering where they can see their beloved suffering also, and because of their 'love'.
Or, actually, since Romeo was also a double murderer by then, he wouldn't get to be a tree. He'd be being boiled in the river of blood for eternity. Juliet would still be a tree, alone.
Maybe she would fall at random on the banks of the river, and maybe Romeo wouldn't be in too deep to see her - after all, he's not a tyrant, and they're the ones in it up to their eyebrows. He might not be in very deep at all, two killings. So he could be in the river looking up at her on the bank. Oh, and any time he tries to get out, he gets shot full of arrows by centaurs. Maybe he'd grab on to her thorny branches to try and get closer, her thorns tearing his flesh, his desperate grip pulling bits off her so she bleeds more. Maybe he's spending eternity boiling in some of her blood. That's real romantic.
... I am so morbid some times.
Yeah, I realise a lot of the Inferno is creepy for reasons beyond the obvious horror show, and these art about hell things exist to scare people off doing things, but some art that actually adds up to 'Murder and Suicide: A Bad Idea' is, you know, uncontroversial in its basic statement.
Making it about Romeo and Juliet is likely to get some controversy going again, but I don't see why. Already the play shows things end poorly for them. This just goes on rather longer in the religious view.
I should note I don't personally believe in eternal hell. Transient hell rebirths, maybe, but I also think Earth can provide hells and heavens enough. Basically though I don't see how transient actions can earn you eternal punishment. Murder is the closest to where I could see it. If you believe that life is a once only deal then murder has forever consequences to the victim, so there's more balance in thinking it has forever consequences for the perpetrator too.
Saying suicide leads to eternal hell... anyone who is thinking about it has a whole lot of problems already, and they're not looking to hurt anyone else. Saying they're very bad wrong will go to hell just seems like blaming the victim there. Compassion fail.
If suicide is treated different than murder in the religious judgement, if Juliet gets points off for still being drugged or something, then Romeo still dies with a murder on his hands and blaming it on his victim for pissing him off. If he'd been willing to let himself get arrested and take judgement and sentence and get dead that way, instead of being so hell bent on dying next to already dead Juliet, he'd have only had one murder. So he did wrong and kept doing more wrong. Judgement says he's going to the bad place, but if suicide is in a different category, Juliet would be going elsewhere. That way they're not even together. And he's suffering anyway.
... can't see how that setup can lead to Juliet being happy in heaven though. Seems like she'd suffer either way.
... has anyone noticed this play is depressing?
Really deeply depressing.
How is that bloody romantic?
They die, and I don't see how that could possibly lead to being happy together.
How this got to be the model I do not know.
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no subject
Date: 2011-04-04 02:17 am (UTC)I really dislike this theme in fanfic. Ran into it more than once, they never warn, people seem to consider this a happy ending - well, the authors do, not so much any reasonable reader. No, dear, being buried next to each other is only romantic if the people were very very very very very very old. And died peacefully. Very. Even so it's not so much "romantic" as "somewhat better than what they do to closeted people and trans people who get buried in a really disrespectful way", but let's put that one aside.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-03 04:54 pm (UTC)All this is clear enough. But the professor's *explanation* had to do with a perceived difference between sexuality and eroticism. A happy ending would have frustrated and spoiled the mood that had been building for the first four acts. Sex is for comedy, but it takes the presence of death to create the erotic.
I don't know if I buy it. But it would certainly explain the obsession with vampires... *eyeroll*