He shows how even in love passages, Shakespeare’s choice of imagery contains allusions to rape narratives in classical and contemporary literature. The poem on which Romeo and Juliet is based, Arthur Brooke’s poem “The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet” casts a much dimmer view of Romeo’s motives.

These allusions help the audience understand that both Juliet and her families concerns about Romeo’s motives are more than just the modesty of young love or family prejudice. They reflect tendencies and concerns about rape in the surrounding culture. For example, Juliet’s second suitor is named Paris. In Greek mythology, Paris stole, and presumably raped, Helen of Troy. Watson further points out that forced marriages were recognized even by contemporaries as a form of socially sanctioned rape.

Though Watson does not use the term “rape culture”, Watson astutely observes its presence even in this most romantic of plays. He also makes a secondary observation that this juxtaposition of perfect romantic love and rape is intentional and meant to disturb.

Watson thinks that Shakespeare is challenging our tendency to force all male eroticism into two categories: romance and rape. He argues that resistance to this idea is

a the fantasy that there is nothing between the benign melting-together of angelic lovers (as in Donne’s “Air and Angels” and Milton’s Paradise Lost, devoid of any element of physical aggression or potential exploitation) and sub-bestial attacks (as on Lucrece and Lavinia)” and that we need to acknowlege (sic) a middle ground between the two. (pp. 31-32)

A middle ground between the two? Isn’t the confusion of violence and sex one of the most common ways of defining rape culture? Is Shakespeare arguing that rape culture is an acceptable reality? Or is there more to this?

Shakespeare is indeed deconstructing social expectations, but he is doing so to criticize the confusion of sex and violence, not to argue for a middle ground. He is deconstructing a society that recognizes certain forms of marriage and sexual aggression as rape and then condones them in the name of family rivalry and alliances – be that of ancient Greece or Renaissance Verona. The juxtaposition of rape and love in “Romeo and Juliet” serves to underline the difference between the two and the tragedy created by a culture that confuses the two. By declaring some sort of liminal space between rape and love, Watson’s conclusions in fact reinforce the very culture that Shakespeare is trying to call to task.

Portrait Partials (Carolee Shneemann)

Part of the problem is that Watson’s analysis of perspective only goes skin deep. A multiplicity of perspectives does not necessarily shift an event into some compromise zone of shared reality.

In fact the failure to give up one’s own reality in favor of an irreconcilable opposing view held by a weaker, vulnerable party is at the heart of many of Shakespeare’s tragedies.

Macbeth loses the loyalty of his nobles because what he sees as royal strength his subjects see as tyranny. When the witches, quintessential symbols of marginality, tell him he will certainly die, he effectively denies their prophesy by concluding there is no such thing as a threat from a man “not of woman born”. His subject Macduff knows otherwise and Macbeth’s naive belief leads him straight into the hands Macduff and death. Othello’s refusal to believe in his wife’s chastity leads to both her death and his own. King Lear’s refusal to believe either his fool or his youngest daughter, lead him to madness and death. Tarquin’s lavish insistence that Lucrece’s hospitality, beauty and terror implies passion lead to his death and the end of the Roman monarchy.

Rape and love co-exist in Romeo and Juliet for the same reason that filial love and betrayal coexist in King Lear – they create the polar opposites around which themes of perception, deception and power revolve. Rape happens when a stronger party refuses to accept the will and perceptions of a weaker party. One calls it love. The other insists there is no reciprocal desire. What better forum to discuss the confusion of rape and love than a tragedy that juxtaposes perceptions of love and rape?

In the processing of rape both now and in the Renaissance there are many different stories to be told: the story according to the survivor, the story according to the rapist, the story according to the rules of evidence, the story later on as life experiences give perspective on earlier life experiences.

Checkmate (Ramon Borges)

Not all of these perspectives are reconcilable. Sexual intercourse is not merely a set of physical acts. Our perceptions of meaning and intent are key to the experience and meaning is inherently subjective. It is entirely possible for one person to see the event as rape and another person to see it as love. Shakespeare is surely aware of this. His poem “The Rape of Lucrete” is a superb study of the contrasting perspectives of rapist and victim. As a survivor of rape I found his depiction of the differing perceptions of victim and rapist so on the mark I felt I was reliving my own rape.

A perpetrator will often try to convince himself that force shows the strength and sincerity of love. But for the victim, force vitiates love. Compromise for ulterior motives, for example, family honor or future economic security, should not be confused with a middle ground between love and rape. It simply means that human beings have always had and always will be driven by more than one agenda.

But there is yet another reason why we should be wary of the idea that Shakespeare is exploring some sort of shared liminal truth. In almost every instance where differing perceptions reconcile into a shared conception of reality, the play is either a comedy or madness is a pervasive and dark theme hanging over the play.

Romeo and Juliet ends in neither laughter or madness. We have only the sorrowful realization that “For never was a story of more woe, Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.” Romeo and Juliet die never understanding the truth about one another. Montague and Capulet continue to misperceive the true source of their loss. Both in her perceptions of love and rape, Juliet is the powerless truth bearer that each character in turn refuses to recognize.

Romeo’s hanging around Juliet’s balcony could be true love or it could be stalking or casual interest or even a deliberate attempt to humiliate her family. Juliet insists that Romeo marry her if his intentions are true, because she knows a dalliance with a young man that does not end in marriage will likely take her out of the marriage market all together. She cannot afford to make a mistake. Furthermore, deflowering your enemy’s virgins was a common form of humiliation. Given the enmity between the families, she had special reason for concern. In fact, the opening of the play begins with such a threat against the house of Montague from her own house, the house of Capulet:

Sampson: …women, being the weaker vessels,
are ever thrust to the wall: therefore I will push
Montague’s men from the wall, and thrust his maids
to the wall

After they marry, differing perceptions of love and rape, honor and violation, and life and death intertwine and lead to the final demise. When Tybald, Juliet’s cousin, challenges him to a duel, he refuses. Romeo cannot tell his cousin Benvolio that Tybald is now family, so Benvolio thinks Romeo is merely being a coward. These conflicting perceptions lead Tybald to fight in Romeo’s stead. When he is killed, Romeo has no choice but to seek vengence and kill Tybald. This in turn forces him to flee town without Juliet.

Meanwhile Juliet’s father wants to make an alliance with the family of Paris and tries to force her into yet second marriage. To Juliet this is rape. Her heart and now her body belong to Romeo. To the family the marriage to Paris is the beginning of joy and love. Her father even advances the marriage day thinking that Juliet would welcome such an alliance to distract her from grief. She has no power to choose and is too fearful to tell her father that she is already married. To escape a forced marriage, she takes a sleeping potion that makes her appear to be dead. When Romeo hears that Juliet is dead he returns. Not knowing that the death is faked, he despairs and kills himself. When Juliet awakes and sees her “true love” dead, Friar Lawrence offers to hide her in a nunnery. These key moments, the death of Tybalt, the announcement of her planned marriage to Paris, and the offer to hide in a nunnery are bound together by the use of the words “dispose” or “disposition”. These are the only times these words are used in the play. Rather than acquiesce to the culture that lead to her sorrow, she too kills herself.

Although Montague and Capulet reconcile with one another at the end of the play, the cultural context that lead to their demise will continue. Marriages will still be made for the sake of political alliance. Young women will continue to lack social recognition for their right to choose a mate and will go to extreme measures to escape forced marriages. Young men will continue to die in duels fighting for family honor. Montague’s offer to build a golden statue of Juliet may honor Juliet but it will not change the culture that lead to her death. “For never was a story of more woe, Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”

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