5349 Tiny TerraceVerona Italy 97562March 15 1594Lord Capulet7642 Sad StreetVerona Italy 97562Lord

5349 Tiny TerraceVerona, Italy 97562March 15, 1594Lord Capulet7642 Sad StreetVerona, Italy 97562Lord Capulet:The purpose of this letter is to address the death of your beloved daughter, Juliet, whose passing away is very unfortunate. However, this letter will explain your daughter’s thinking at the time. The juvenile brain is very different from the adult brain and only starts to look like the adult brain in the early-mid 20’s (“Inside the Teenage Brain”). Many parts of the teen brain are not matures and this affects the decisions a teen makes. In fact, one of the undeveloped parts of the adolescent brain “is the prefrontal cortex, a section of the brain that weighs outcomes, forms judgments and controls impulses and emotions” (Edmonds). The prefrontal cortex acts as a remote control for decision making. Combined with the “nucleus accumbens”, or the area of the brain that seeks pleasure and reward, teenagers are more prone to make hasty decisions for pleasure. We see this process start to take place when, after Romeo sneaked into your daughter’s balcony, they talked until morning. Teens start to think about others of their own age during puberty where hormones seem to run wild. During this time, parents classify their children as “emotional time bombs, apt to explode at any minute into tears or rage.” (Edmonds). We see this with your daughter’s passionate defense of Romeo when he kills her cousin. Juliet defends Romeo from the nurse’s comments and in doing so, seems to weigh the life of someone she met a day ago over her own cousin that she has known from birth!Most surprisingly, your daughter and Romeo decide to get married within twenty four hours of meeting. It’s here their hormonal instability highlights their lack of thinking behind their decision making. Marriage itself is a vow to care for the other until the death. It is a promise to support one another through sickness and health, through thick and thin, and through darkness and light. Romeo and Juliet may have thought that what they had was true love but it was actually hormones puppeteering their minds. This reveals Romeo and Juliet’s rash and reckless decisions were caused mainly because of the emotions brought by the teen phase. The chemicals took control over the prefrontal cortex and did not sense that their families would be upset at this marriage. The hormones allowed for bad judgment to cloud the beneficial recommendations of the prefrontal cortex.Romeo and Juliet’s passionate but unplanned decision making reveals the development of the teen brain. Their sense to fulfill pleasure and reward with the nucleus accumbens isn’t balanced with clear thought towards consequences with regards to developing prefrontal cortex. This proposition can also lead to another suggestion about Romeo and Juliet’s behavior. Both Romeo and Juliet knew that there would be horrific consequences due to their decision to get married, but their brain did not recognize their want for pleasure, and so Romeo and Juliet carried out their marriage even after knowing the consequences for that little moment of joy. This research supports with evidence that Romeo and Juliet should not be completely blamed for their actions. The pubescent age is extremely hard to deal with and one of the hardest years in one’s life. Especially with the added phase of puberty changing their bodies and the way they think about others their age. Sincerely,Rohit Mandal