Despite what many think, Romeo and Juliet is not a love story; rather a story of desperation and obsession. People have been reading Shakespeare for hundreds of years, and many people have mistaken it for a love story, because Romeo loves Juliet so much that he is willing to kill himself when he finds her supposedly dead; she does the same when she wakes up and finds him dead. But in reality Romeo is more surprised by her beauty than in love with her. Juliet is intrigued that anyone could love her because her parents don't support her at all. When the two meet again they immediately become obsessed, mistaking this for love at first sight. Romeo has an obsessive personality. The morning before he meets Juliet, he is obsessed with Rosaline. To see Rosaline, Romeo sneaked into a Capulet party; once there, he meets Juliet and immediately forgets his obsession with Rosaline, thinking that Juliet is the most beautiful creature on earth. Friar Lawrence also recognizes this when he states: «The love of young people therefore lies / Not truly in their hearts but in their eyes» (II iii 67-68). Romeo's affection passes easily from Rosaline to Juliet. Romeo and Juliet shouldn't be together. After seeing Romeo, Juliet sends the Nurse to find out who he is. The nurse returns saying: «His name is Romeo, he is Montague, / Only son of your great enemy» (I v 36-37). They immediately become desperate to see each other all the time, ignoring the fact that their families are in conflict. Juliet likes the proverbial forbidden fruit, saying, “What's in a name? What we call rose / By any other name it would smell the same; So Romeo, if he were not called Romeo, / Would maintain that dear perfection which he owes / Without that... middle of paper... yes, for years, believing it to be a play about love, but the way Shakespeare has wrote the play which is anything but a love story. The fact that Romeo switched from Rosaline to Juliet, simply because he believed Juliet was more beautiful than Rosaline, provides the perfect example of the play being based on desperation. Juliet says to Romeo, showing her desperation: “Good night, good night! Parting is such a sweet pain / that I will say goodnight until tomorrow” (II ii 188-189). When Romeo and Juliet say that they cannot spend another night away from each other, it is a perfect example of obsession in the play. Even Romeo knows he is anxious to force love when he says, “The exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine” (II ii 127). Works Cited Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet. Language of literature. Ed. Arthur N. Applebee. Evanston: McDougal Littell, 2002. Print.