Liana DeVoe

Ms. Price

Honors English I

March 28, 2018

Unrequited love and Romeo and Juliet

When most people hear the word love they think of romantic love, but in fact there are

many different types of love. A few examples of love, other than romantic, are unrequited,

familial, platonic, religious, and self love. Many of these types of love are present in Romeo and

Juliet including romantic, familial, platonic, and self love, but the most evident is unrequited

love. Unrequited love is love that is unreturned, unwanted, or unreciprocated. Unrequited love is

the most common type of love because it is most evident in modern day, specifically shown in

the story Althea and Oliver, and Romeo and Juliet and it is presented similarly.

Unrequited love is the most common type of love shown in modern day life and is

usually seen in a romantic way between two close friends. It can also be seen in families where

children are unwanted by their parents, but it is less common to be shown in movies, books, tv

shows, etc. In the book Althea and Oliver by Cristina Moracho, Althea is in love with her long

time best friend Oliver. Althea says, “What I want is for Oliver to wake up today and realize he’s

in love with me. But that’s not going to happen” (Moracho 336.6). Althea, understandably, really

wants Oliver to love her back which is shown when the author says, “Everything would be

different if he loved her the way she loves him” (Moracho 361.1). In this example, Althea’s love

for Oliver would be considered unrequited because it is unreciprocated by Oliver. Althea wants

Oliver to feel the same way she does and Oliver just wants everything to go back to the way it

used to be when they were just friends and Althea did not have romantic feelings for him. In
modern life, there are more examples of unrequited love than any other type of love. The

outcomes of these relationships can vary, but each situation starts out the same way, with

someone loving another and not being loved back.

Not only is unrequited love the most common love found in modern day life, but it is also

the most common type of love present in Romeo and Juliet. One example of unrequited love is

Romeo’s love for Rosaline. Romeo shows romantic affections towards Rosaline, but he says,

“out of her favor where I am in love” (Shakespeare 1.1.158), which means she does not feel the

same way about him. Romeo claims that nothing could convince Rosaline to return his love

saying “even cupid’s arrow won’t reach her” (Shakespeare 1.1.201-202). Romeo’s love for

Rosaline is unrequited because she does not love him back. Rosaline does not return Romeo’s

love and does not want his affections. In Romeo and Juliet unrequited love is the most common

type of love and Romeo’s love for Rosaline is the most noticeable.

Unrequited love is not just evident in both Romeo and Juliet and modern times, it is also

presented in similar ways. In Romeo and Juliet and in Althea and Oliver, Romeo and Althea both

lose hope in love after being rejected. In Romeo and Juliet, Romeo shows his sorrow about his

unrequited love for Rosaline by saying “Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, Too rude, too

boist’rous and it pricks like thorn.” (Shakespeare 1.4.25-26). Romeo is basically saying he never

wants to fall in love again and is very upset with Rosaline’s rejection. In Althea and Oliver,

Althea is also very upset about being rejected. The author proves this when she says, “This is it,

then: the end of hope. Her hope that he would love her back” (Moracho 363.1). This means that

Althea, like Romeo, is losing hope for love. Romeo and Althea may be from different times and

different made up realities, but they were similarly upset about their unrequited love.
 Despite the fact that there are many different types of love, both in reality and in Romeo

and Juliet, unrequited love is the most evident. Unrequited love is love that is unreturned and is

typically perceived as romantic. There are many instances or situations where unrequited love is

found and many people experience unrequited love at least once in their life.