The reason I think Love vs. Lust was a theme because while reading the play, I wasn't completely convinced that Romeo and Juliet were in love. At least, I didn't feel that they were in love until in the end. Love, I think would usually take a while to develop, but Romeo and Juliet fell in "love" right when they saw each other not knowing one another yet. Not to mention the fact that they married each other within a few hours.They barely spoke to each other a lot when they first met, they just immediately liked one another based on looks and nothing else, which represents lust more so than love.
Also, before meeting Juliet, Romeo said that he was in "love" with Rosaline. But what turned out to be was that he didn't love her, he had a crush on her, so maybe he was confused on what the word "love" meant. If Romeo claimed to be in "love" with Rosaline, how could he have, within a few minutes, fallen in love with Juliet and want to marry her so suddenly? This made me think that he switched his "love" to Juliet, because she actually reacted to him and said that she liked him as well, I think that is what kept him with Juliet, because she did like him back.
Love takes time to develop, like I said earlier, but lust can be fast almost as if it was rushed. But that could be just because Juliet was arranged to be married to Paris. One would be able to argue that to be the reason for the rush. But, it could've just been that Juliet wanted a way out of the marriage with Paris, i'm not doubting that she liked Romeo, but i think that she sort of, in a way, used him as she saw how devoted he was to her and how much he "loved" her. This was the perfect opportunity for her to escape.
To me, this play seemed to be more of a lust story rather than a love story.
