Tragedy of Errors

It's most commonly understood that Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy. The problem with this is that people most often thing that the characters themselves are tragic when, instead, it is the chain of events that make up the tragedy. Both Romeo and Juliet are simple characters. Teenagers who fall in love. The only problem is the hate between their families. Every event that occurs in Romeo and Juliet is so specific that it must be accidental. Ruth Nevo says in her article, "The plot of Romeo and Juliet stresses the accidental. The fortuitous meeting of Romeo and Benvolio with Capulet's illiterate messenger bearing the invitations he cannot decipher, the chance encounter between Romeo and Tybalt at a most unpropitious moment, the outbreak of the plague which quarantines Friar John, the meeting of Romeo and Paris at the Capulet tomb are instance which come at once to mind. Shakespeare, so far from mitigating the effect of unfortunate coincidence is evidently concerned to draw our attention to it. Bad luck, misfortune, sheer inexplicable contingency is a far from negligible source of the suffering and calamity in human life which is the subject of tragedy's mimesis..."

Nevo makes a valid point in that the chain of events that occur between these two families is where the real tragedy lies. For example, if Romeo and Benvolio had never gotten ahold of those invitations, the entire play would have never happened. When producing this play, it must be taken into account that the characters are not tragic, but their lives become a tragedy in these events.

Nevo, Ruth. "Tragic Form in Romeo and Juliet." Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900. 9.2 (1969): 241.