How did Shakespeare envision Romeo's character?

Romeo is very much like the play itself: full of
paradoxes.

Just as Romeo and Juliet are never meant to be together,
Romeo is never meant to feud with his enemies. When he does, tragedy
ensues.

Shakespeare envisions Romeo as both a lover and a fighter,
full of paradoxes, dualities, and oxymorons. In Act I, Romeo's first monologue is full of
opposites:

O
brawling love! O loving hate!
O any thing, of nothing first
create!
O heavy lightness! serious
vanity!
Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming
forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold
fire,
sick health!
Still-waking sleep,
that is not what it is!
This love feel I, that feel no love in
this.
Dost thou not
laugh?

Romeo is torn between
fate and feud, two major themes and dualities. In Acts I and II, he believes his destiny is to
love Juliet, no matter what her name is. Later, after Mercutio and Tybalt are killed and he is
exiled, Romeo believes it is his fate to die by his own hand.

Notice
that Romeo is never meant to fight the Capulets: he fights against the family curse the entire
play, only to fall prey to it in an instant ("I am fortune's fool!") in Act
III.