Romeo and Juliet’s relationship is full of passion and the love they have for each other is vivid to the audience. Continuing on from a magical night together, Romeo must flee to Mantua. Juliet wishes not to part from her love. The two lovers regularly express their feelings and emotions through a poetic language and frequently refer to each other as “love”. Their meaning of the word “love” means much more and is used more deeply than how the same word is used today, for instance as dear or darling. For that confident moment their undying love and their hard to believe happiness has no boundaries and are keen to even blissfully welcome death if that is what it takes to always e together, “I have more care to stay than will to go”, Romeo also feels this way and wishes to stay with his love whereas he has to leave as the prince decreed. Juliet soon understands that Romeo must now go.
Their joy and untroubled mood is a huge contrast with what’s nest to come, violence, anger and misunderstanding of the concluding scene. After their discussion of Romeo not leaving, he soon becomes scared for his safely and well-being, “I must be gone and live, or stay and die”, they both soon realise their bliss will not continue because of the harsh circumstances that soon appeared with the dawn of light, with the entrance of the nurse they notice their timer is up and Romeo tries to be optimistic, “all these woes shall serve for sweet discourses in our timer to come” reassuring Juliet that they will soon be together. Juliet frightfully predicts that in time to come, Romeo will die, “me thinks I see thee, now art so low. As one dead in the bottom of a tomb”, this hints to the audience that a tragedy is soon to occur. Juliet’s fears amplify the audience’s fear of a catastrophe soon to approach.
Lady Capulet wishes for Romeo to be dead, she informs Juliet of her soon to be marriage to Paris. Juliet is stuck in the middle; her love and loyalty to her soul mate, but on the other hand her trust and obedience to her family. In Juliet’s eyes there is only one way to be free, suicide. Ironically she says, “indeed, I never shall be satisfied with Romeo till I behold him dead”, this suggests to her mother that she also wishes for Romeo dead while she is really saying her heart is dead because of the separation. Also showing irony as the audience know Romeo is her husband. A lot of the conversation between the mother and daughter has a lot of opposite ides to them but with the same words, Juliet repeats a lot of what her mother said with different meanings. As we have seen earlier in this scene Lady Capulet is eager for vengeance and blood for blood, “we will have vengeance for it, fear thou not” she wants revenge for Tybalt’s death and to rid Romeo, the murderer. Lady Capulet means “dram”, a poison; ironically Romeo will poison himself further on during the play. J
uliet’s relies on the nurse for moral and pragmatic support. Lady Capulet is a status-seeker whose affection for her daughter is kept to a minimum, she speaks to Juliet in a formal manner, and this is a huge contrast in the way Romeo speaks to her, full of compassion. When her plans disperse as a result of Juliet’s refusal, she ruthlessly, cold-heartedly deserts Juliet in her hour of need and desperation, “talk not to me, for I’ll not speak a word: do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee”, as if she cannot even be bothered with her, she disowns her blood for a marriage against her will. The audience reaction is shocked and disgraced at how her own mother could abandon as if Juliet was nothing to do with her.
Capulet is the patriarch of the family, he truly loves his daughter, this is very much recognised but the audience but he is unable to connect with her and her feelings. He is commonly known as a caring and affectionate father: “how now! A conduct girl? What! Still in tears?” He tries his best to be a good loving father and to help secure her happiness. He has great difficulty in listening to Juliet and understanding his feelings. An example of irony is that Capulet is wishing for Juliet’s happiness but actually accomplishing the opposite and contributes to leading her to suicide. A he is unable to fully understanding her he results in physical violence when his respect and propriety is lacking. His language becomes very offensive and shows his feelings and emotions openly and makes sure he has the power and authority, “and you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend; and you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets”. Most of his language uses explosive monosyllables, “minion”, “graze”. He threatens her for her disobedient.
When Capulet enters this scene, he starts off in a very pleased mood, as soon as lady Capulet says, “ay sir, but she will none, she gives you thanks”, he instantly reacts and the mood changes. He explodes into a violent rage and curses Juliet “disobedient wretch! And “young baggage”, and threatens to disinherit her if she does not obey. He carries on verbally and physically abusing her whilst saying, “Speak not, reply not, and do not answer me! Dissimilarity to Lady Capulet very formal way of speaking, as we can see Capulet speaks with a lot of slang and colloquialisms. All hope of Juliet’s father understanding has gone. Lady Capulet at this point tries to relieve Juliet from her husband, “fie, fie! What are you mad?”, preventing her daughter from becoming seriously injured which shows a sign of affection compared to the rest of the scene, but Capulet doesn’t let any one stand in his way. This creates great sympathy for Juliet.
Through out the play the nurse shows a lot of affection for Juliet. She plays more of a mother figure to her. The nurse had been within the Capulet household for at least 14years, all of Juliet’s life. As Juliet grows up, she still plays an important role in her life. The nurse also had a daughter, born the same day as Juliet, but sadly she dies leaving the nurse very distraught. As a result of the incident she considers Juliet like her own. In the argument between Juliet and her father, she risked her position to help and support Juliet, “God in heaven bless her! You are to lame, my lord, to rate her Unfortunately although the nurse is very affectionate, she misunderstands Juliet’s true love to Romeo and advises her to enter into an illegal marriage with Paris, Juliet is disgusted: “ancient damnation, o most wicked fiend! It is more sin to wish me thus forsworn”.
When the nurse enters she warns the pair of lady Capulet coming, if it wasn’t for the nurse, Lady Capulet would have probably found Romeo, resulting in a different ending. Now that Juliet has been abandoned by her parents the nurse is her last resort, she wants “comfort”. She uses the word 3 times, but what she wants she doesn’t get, “well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much”, this is ironic as she is saying Romeo will not come back and Paris is much better all-round. The nurse also misunderstands her and advises her to forget Romeo her true love completely, “I think it best you married the county. O! He’s a lovely gentleman; Romeos a dishclout to him” this is where the nurses affection starts to fade and puts herself before Juliet and what matters truly. Juliet is disgusted and astonished with this and results in causing Juliet to look elsewhere for help and loses her confidence and trust. Now Juliet can see that there is only one way out, death, “if all else fail, myself have power to die, she feels as if there is now no-one on her side, she is alone, with only the thoughts of her love to keep her going. She is isolated. At the end of this scene, Juliet says she will no longer trust the nurse.
Juliet now alone, she is a tragic idol alone with her destiny.
When her mother tells her not to mourn so much for Tybalt’s death, she silently desires to poison and assassinate Romeo which is ironic because Romeo commits suicide by poisoning himself. Through this she will accomplish revenge and satisfaction, still not seeing the real story. Although Juliet’s love for Romeo is true, she secretly desires him dead to put an end to his sufferings. When Juliet disagrees and refuses the arranged marriage with Paris, Capulet becomes violent and angry at her disobedience. He commits verbal abuse and threatens to disown his daughter so he can feel the power and authority as he knows he should feel. Without the feeling of being in control and authoritative he is destroyed. He does this to his daughter because he feels betrayed and hurt, as if his daughter is not his daughter, she has no respect when the real story is she’s in love with some-one else but through his lack of misunderstanding he is unable to sense this. She turns toward her mother who leaves her coldly as she doesn’t care for her daughter, she is only out to look after herself and make sure her reputation is up to standards.
After trying to receive comfort form the only person who she feels close to advises her to marry Paris, disregarding everything she knows and understands; Juliet is outraged. The nurse had also turned her back and is again thinking of herself and to get her out of being found out or losing her position with in the house hold. Juliet now turns to Friar Laurence and considers death. She finally finds someone help her through her desperate times, and someone her begins to understand her love for Romeo. A contemporary audience would begin to sympathise with Juliet and also begin to understand what she is feeling through the language and speech. Her feelings are transferred to the audience, who now feel the same loneliness and heart-break as she does. Whereas a Shakespearean audience would feel no sorrow towards Juliet and act as though she deserves it, they would support Capulet in his decisions and would disagree with the lover’s affair.
