The most obvious and significant obstacle faced by Romeo and Juliet is the feud between their two families. This feud means that their respective parents will never agree to a marriage between them, and it also means that if the families find out about their relationship, more "civil blood" might be spilled in anger. Accordingly, Romeo and Juliet have to conduct their relationship in secret.
Another significant obstacle that Romeo and Juliet face is fate, or destiny. We are told immediately, in the prologue which opens the play, that their love is "death-marked" and "fatal." There are also reminders throughout the play that their love is fated to end in tragedy. For example, in act three, scene five, Juliet has a vision in which she sees Romeo "as one dead in the bottom of a tomb."
Perhaps the third most significant obstacle faced by Romeo and Juliet is the recklessness with which they love one another. Friar Laurence repeatedly warns them against this recklessness. He describes their love as violent, implying that they love too extremely, and he warns them that their "violent delights (will) have violent ends." Friar Laurence advises Romeo and Juliet to "love moderately," but, perhaps because they are so young, they do not heed his advice. Arguably, if they had loved more moderately, the tragic end of their love might have been avoided.
The most significant obstacle Romeo and Juliet face is the impetuousness of youth. Many of the literal obstacles they face are external forces that could have been mitigated. Considering that marriage was often used to make peace or create alliances among feuding families, the actions of the young lovers were rash and ill thought out.
The overarching obstacle is the feud between the Capulets and the Montagues, families that have been at odds for a long time and whose progeny often fight in the streets. Tybolt in particular is a constant cause of enmity.
The culture of arraigned marriage is also an obstacle as Juliet is set to be married to the man of her father's choice. The situation causes the young couple to panic, leading to a number of poor decisions.
The plan they come up with is a terrible one and is quickly derailed by a simple lack of communication. The most important possible message is lost, leading to misunderstanding and suicide.
Romeo and Juliet face a number of obstacles. Most obviously, their two families are feuding and neither Romeo's nor Juliet's parents approve of their courtship, so they must keep it secret. Secondly, they face the irrationality and unpredictability of Capulet in particular. Once Capulet arranges for Juliet to marry Paris and she refuses, Capulet becomes hostile and violent, threatening to throw her out and disown her. Further, once the plan is in place for Juliet to escape her home and elope with Romeo, she pretends to submit to her father's wishes, at which time he becomes very happy and moves up the date of her wedding to Paris. This creates problems for the escape plan, and becomes one of the catalysts for the end tragedy.Thirdly, the two face an obstacle via the plague. Once Romeo has fled to Mantua, Juliet and Friar Laurence come up with the plan to fake Juliet's death. The Friar sends a message to Romeo, explaining what is to happen (so that he won't believe she has actually died), but the message never gets to Romeo because the carrier is suspected of being contaminated with the plague, so he isn't allowed into Mantua to deliver the message to Romeo. Finally, another obstacle for the doomed couple is their own impulsivity. Theirs is a very quick courtship. It begins the very night that Romeo is obsessively pining for Rosaline. His friends take him to Capulet's party to cheer him up because he can't stop thinking about how much he loves Rosaline and will never be able to live without her. Yet upon first seeing Juliet, he immediately forgets Rosaline and decides that Juliet is now the end all, be all, key to life and breathing. Juliet, too, reacts very impulsively. When her super-impulsive father tells her the plan for her arranged marriage, she gets very upset and lashes out. While she has every right to do so, it sparks him to fall into a rage and retaliate with a number of ridiculous threats from disowning her to beating her. This isn't her fault, of course; clearly Capulet has issues, but it presents another obstacle to her union with Romeo.
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