The definition of "fickle" is, changing frequently, especially as regards to one's loyalty, interests, or affection. Romeo loves passionately in the book, but is described as a fickle character.
He is described as this because in the beginning of the book, he is completely infatuated with a woman named, "Rosaline." His heartbreak for her was so extreme that he told Benvolio that he will never love another woman.
When Benvolio tried to persuade him to think about other women instead of continuing to mourn the heartbreak, he says that "there can't possibly be a woman more fair than Rosaline."
The way Romeo is "fickle," is because as soon as he sees Juliet he immediately falls in love. He completely contradicts himself by saying, "Did my heart love until now?"
This means that he was not ever really in love with Rosaline, but the thought of her. The fact that he fell in love again so quickly makes him fickle.
In Romeo and Juliet, Romeo is a passionate but very fickle character. This is clear from the way he very quickly changes the objects of his devotion and often acts with very shallow understandings of the people and events in his life. The main indicator of his fickleness starts at the very beginning of the play and sets off the chain of events that ends in tragedy.
At the beginning of the play, Romeo knows nothing about Juliet and is "in love" with a girl named Rosaline. In act 1, scene 2 Benvolio says:
At this same ancient feast of Capulet'sSups the fair Rosaline whom thou so lovest,With all the admired beauties of Verona:Go thither; and, with unattainted eye,Compare her face with some that I shall show,And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.
Benvolio is claiming he can find many girls more beautiful and worthy than Rosaline and that Romeo is simply lovesick in a shallow way. Benvolio says if Romeo looks with "an untainted eye" he will see other beautiful girls and find nothing particularly remarkable about Rosaline. Because Benvolio is Romeo's cousin and friend, we can infer that Benvolio knows Romeo well enough for this to be a reasonable assumption for him to make about his friend's behavior.
To this, Romeo responds,
When the devout religion of mine eyeMaintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires;And these, who often drown'd could never die,Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars!One fairer than my love! the all-seeing sunNe'er saw her match since first the world begun.
Clearly, he believes he is passionately in love with this girl. He compares Rosaline to a religion he devoutly follows and Benvolio to a heretic insulting his object of devotion,. He uses passionate language to claim no woman has ever been, or will ever be, as beautiful as Rosaline.
And yet, in scene 5, only a few scenes after this exchange, Romeo sees Juliet at the Capulets' feast and is immediately captivated by her. He asks a servant who she is and claims he "ne'er saw true beauty till this night." Instantly, he forgets Rosaline and begins to speak with the same passion about Juliet, though he has not yet spoken to her, saying she "teach[es] the torches to burn bright" and her beauty is "too rich for use, for earth too dear!" The moment he meets her, he talks to and about her using religious metaphors just as he did with Rosaline, comparing her to something holy, perfect, and capable of absolving him from sin. This instant, shallow love of Juliet sets the rest of the play in motion and causes a great "romance" and great tragedy to occur in less than four days' time.
In starting the play with Romeo's interest in Rosaline, Shakespeare shows us how shallow Romeo's "love" for Juliet really is and sets up a character who is clearly very immature, mercurial, and fickle.
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