A long feud between the Montague and Capulet families disrupts the city of Verona and causes tragic results for Romeo and Juliet who fall in love, but cannot be together. A secret marriage force the young star-crossed lovers to grow up quickly for Juliet is to be wed to another. Juliet takes a sleeping potion that makes her appear to be dead for 42 hours -- in this time Romeo is to be told that she is still alive, however he was not so he illegally purchased a poison so that he could be with Juliet in death. He goes to her tomb and takes the poison. When Juliet awakes she sees this and kills herself with a dagger.
Poison symbolizes human society’s tendency to poison good things and make them fatal, just as the pointless Capulet-Montague feud turns Romeo and Juliet’s love to poison. After all, unlike many of the other tragedies, this play does not have an evil villain, but rather people whose good qualities are turned to poison by the world in which they live.
