Coming of Age in Verona by Coppelia Kahn

Coming of Age in

by Coppelia Kahn

In this unarguably patriarchal society

a pair of star cross'd lovers take their life

According to Kahn, their deaths are a result of being unfortunately born into a patriarchal society, leaving them no room to breathe or grow from beneath their father's thumbs.

Fate is just an excuse for their deaths,

and it is actually the promotion of

masculinity (e.g. violence on the

mean streets of Verona) that forces

Romeo to become a murderer.

This "inheritance of hatred" fosters rash, choleric impulsiveness. And Kahn argues that it is continuance of the fued through both families, not fate, that is the true killer of the adolescent souls.

The feud provides a "psychosexual moratorium" for the sons and impressionable young men. These youths have been socialized into believing that they must continue the feud, for it is their patriarch's will.

Shakespeare provides his audience with three different examples of "masculinity" within the play-text.

Tybalt, who is aggressive,

rebellious, and hostile.

Tybalt is the epitome of masculinity

if masculinity can be determined by anger,

pride, and the ability to posture and come to blows

(with either words or swords.)

Romeo,

the only son of Montague.

He is gentle, uses puns of

peace-making to try and sway

Tybalt when challenged

by him, and seeks his

manhood through love.

And Mercutio,

who uses aggressive speech

to often replace physical

violence and mocks all love,

distancing himself from

women.

These three men are "Veronian" examples of

masculinity, where violence, aggressive language, and bloodshed line the pathway into manhood.

These men have been socialized into patriarchal roles.

Their fathers (and father figures) have promoted aggression and violence as expected marks of manhood, which coincide with how they view women (as the weaker sex who have nothing more to offer than more sons to continue the manhood trend), and continued a lifelong feud to ally their men with their households.

The setting of the play is integral to the promotion of this aggression and masculinity. The household, for example, is where we see the women. The streets, however, are meant for the boys. This is where they can posture and dig at one another, draw their weapons, and practice throwing sharp words and sharp swords at one another.

The streets are where boys become men, phallic competitiveness is all the rage, and they where they learn to "stand" -all at the cost of civil peace.

Kahn also touches upon the idea of marriage as

a way to create new identities, to diverge from the

patriarchal notion that violence is the answer to manhood.

Romeo and Juliet's allegiance to their fathers turns into allegiance to one another. However, because they've been programmed from birth, their past allegiances come into play and they are unable to avoid being tainted by them.

Their marriage is wholly private (barring the Nurse

and Friar Lawrence's knowledge), and so

the feud continues because they can never

publicize their vows. They are unable to remove

themselves from the grave their parents have sent

them to (i.e. fatal loins) and so must continue the

trend of violence and rage.

Kahn argues that along with their inability to

escape the feud, they also have almost no

chance of escaping the traditional roles

heaped upon their shoulders, that of husband and wife.

Women are merely vessels for men to bury their seed in. Men bear names and women bear children.

Men conquer the earth; women are connected to the earth and so belong beneath a man's feet.

The Nurse embodies the female self molded devotedly to the female's family role. She preaches subjugation to the role of wife and mother, which is "integral to nature itself."

When she tells Juliet that Romeo is banished, she

also tells Juliet that she must forget about him, bear her father's will and marry Paris - for Juliet is a woman and must listen to the patriarch of her family. And once she is

free from his tyranny, she must listen to her husband.

In the end, Kahn posits that Romeo and Juliet have come of age in a sense, though much more spiritually than anything else. Though their deaths are tragic, they have also defied both of their fathers in their want to

be together. In death, they have risen above the feud that consumed and destroyed them, and removed themselves from phallic violence and adolescent motherhood.

Questions for further discussion:

Is violence and bloodshed still a rite of manhood?

Is this notion promoted more fully because adolescents are exposed to an overabundance of social media and technology? Physical violence is still prevalent in our society, but young men are exposed to a number of different mediums promoting violence (e.g. music and video games) which have become societal "norms" for young men to participate in.

What has changed in terms of the rite of passage from childhood to motherhood for women? Is motherhood still

revered as the most holy and necessary role a woman can

play? Or has it become something less?

And because I really

don't want to end this

presentation on a Teen

Mom note...