Before the stage is set for Act 3 Scene 5, we watch as Romeo has shot Tybalt in his anger over Mercutio’s death. In this time of rage where the lights would be dim and red, the nurse sees him and allows him over at the Capulet’s for one night as it is his and Juliet’s honeymoon. Of course, he has to leave as it turns morning because he has been banished from Verona to Mantua. And so after Romeo meets with Friar Lawrence, he rushes off to Juliet’s bedroom.
As it turns to the morning, Juliet and Romeo talk about the nightingale and the lark. The nightingale represents the night and the lark represents the day, just as the dark is bad and the light is good. In this case, however, the night is good and the day is bad, which shows a contrast to how it is normally shown. Night is represented as a good thing for Romeo and Juliet as he can stay for longer without anyone knowing that he’s there, but as he’s been banished, the day is represented as a bad thing. This is because he needs to be out of Verona as soon as the light shines, or else he’ll be in even more trouble than already.
As Romeo leaves Juliet’s bedroom, Juliet lays still on her bed crying softly. The Nurse is sat on the side of Juliet’s bed, gently rubbing her shoulder to try and comfort. This shows that the Nurse and Juliet are close to each other and shows that the Nurse is more like a mother figure to her. As Juliet carries on crying on the bed, footsteps can be heard as Lady Capulet walks towards her room. She shouts ‘Ho, daughter, are you up?’ This probably shows that she doesn’t really visit Juliet in her bedroom in the morning, and so it’s quite unusual. We can see that it is evidently unusual as Juliet replies by asking herself who’s calling, and also asks ‘What unaccustomed cause procures her hither?’ This could also mean that Lady Capulet and Juliet are not close, which gives away Lady Capulet not being a mother figure to her own daughter.
Lady Capulet enters the bedroom, crowded with a large, flat screen HD television, surrounded with jewellery hanging down from diamond and mirror holders. Around the rest of the room, sort of parading the huge double bed, are a number of tops and dresses, with numerous other clothing scattered all around, hanging out of the drawers and dragged away from the coat hangers in the towering wardrobes. Next to the designer wardrobe filled with Gucci and Chanel, there is a cupboard, burst open with the amount of high-heeled glamorous shoes in different colours. It’s almost as if a rainbow is scattering itself around the fluffy ink carpet that swallows their feet.
Capturing the attention of the glamorous room to herself, Lady Capulet floats slowly into the room. She is dressed in a loud and eccentric nightgown, flawlessly showing off colours like purple and gold. This shows her rich status, and shows how important she is to wear such bright clothes. As it’s the morning, her hair isn’t perfect, but it still drapes gently around her neck, with blonde sparkles here and there. Her gown open to show her glistening purple dress, Lady Capulet loudly strides over to Juliet’s dressing mirror, psychotically followed by maids of all sizes.
She turns towards Juliet, who is lying in a foetal position to show the irony of being a child, even though she’s just had her honeymoon. She notices that her eyes are filled with tears and questions her, ‘Why how now Juliet?’ This shows that she is actually quite caring towards her, and shows that she is her mother even though she may not show it much. She asks after Juliet’s reply, “Evermore weeping for your cousin’s death?” Lady Capulet asks this, which suggests a feeling of dramatic irony. This is because she thinks that Juliet is crying over her cousin Tybalt’s death, however she is actually crying over Romeo leaving to Mantua. As Lady Capulet does not realise Juliet’s anguish over Romeo leaving, she begins to talk about how crying over the loss of someone too much leads to “some want of wit” and only “some grief shows much love”. She also follows this with her hatred of Romeo, which is shown by her calling him a “villain”, clearly stated in the line “That same villain Romeo.”
“Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child,
One who, to put thee from thy heaviness,
Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy,
That thou expects not, nor i looked not for.”
Lady Capulet suddenly announces the dramatic irony that has happened in the play. Whilst Juliet was upstairs in her gorgeous bedroom with her lover Romeo sharing a romantic honeymoon together, her father was downstairs, arranging the wedding for her and Paris. He wanted Juliet to marry Paris, to gain the status of his family. This was obviously because Paris’s publicity is good and if she married him then their publicity would increase also. In the years when Romeo and Juliet was set, the society was patriarchal. This meant that the males were in charge of everything in their lives, and females were seen to be inferior. Further more, the fathers were seen to be in complete control of their daughters without any say in it from any one else. This was obviously bad news for Juliet, as even though she was already married, it seemed as though she would have to be married to Count Paris without turning down the offer.
After finding out about her arranged marriage to Count Paris, Juliet begins to argue with her mother. She forwards lines such as “He shall not make me there a joyful bride, I wonder at this haste, that i must wed”, along with “I pray you tell my lord and my father, madam, I will not marry yet, and when I do, I swear It shall be Romeo, whom you know i hate, Rather than Paris.” The second line shows that she is quite indefinite towards the fact that she will not marry Paris, and it also shows irony to the fact that she is married to Romeo already and does not hate him.
Unaware to the arguing and disobeying that’s just been going on, Capulet’s voice is clearly heard from the great staircase leading from the huge entrance hall. Although you can clearly hear his vocals, who he is talking to is unknown to each highly classed and lowly classed lady standing around Juliet’s room, arranging it to look tidy again. As his booming voice clashes against the walls of the rooms, his large body struts flauntingly into the bedroom. A mouse-like Nurse, attempting to get her tiny voice through to him follows. The Nurse does actually have a name but is only called Nurse because she isn’t of as much importance in the play as anybody else. She is also called Nurse because Juliet is only shown as a child in the play and so making her call her by this name is showing that’s she the child.
The Nurse is shown later in the play to be quite an unimportant character. This is because when Lord Capulet is speaking to Juliet in a bad manner about her not wanting to marry Paris, the Nurse tries to interrupt to get him off her. After objecting to Capulet about how it is actually his fault, Capulet cuts her speech off and carries on loudly speaking. This is shown by the Nurse saying “May not one speak?” By Capulet blocking the Nurse from speaking her words, this shows that she does not deserve to speak at this time because she’s not important enough, and shows that he’s more important.
When Lord Capulet strides into the room, his chin is high in the air to show that he is clearly ‘better’ than everyone else is. On his face there is a large grin, showing that he is happy and proud of himself that he set Juliet up with a popular man. His grin is hiding taint in his personality. This stain is the selfishness for himself. He’s only happy about fixing Juliet up because the publicity for himself will become better and higher, so he’s only really doing it for himself. His selfishness and his happiness is shown as he postpones the wedding until Thursday. This shows that he is sad and maybe angry about Tybalt’s death, but he doesn’t want that to ruin things with the wedding, and so he postpones it to be later on a few days.
His clothes consist of a very purple coat that is rimmed with shining gold and a pair of very pressed black trousers. These show that he is smart, wealthy and organised. He is wearing a lot of jewellery around his neck, and around his arms, with a very stylish watch. This will show his wealth as well. He will constantly stand up and talk very loudly to show his status within the room, whereas everybody else will be either small or will sit down on the bed or a chair. When he enters he will automatically come to Juliet’s side and put his arm around her gently to show his compassion and comforting towards her. It shows a contrast between the father and the daughter, and between the young and the old.
Juliet’s personality in this scene shines through very much. Throughout the whole play she is shown as an innocent teenage girl, going through her life like any other. However, in this scene she is shown as devious, defiant, rebellious, disrespectful and also headstrong. She is shown as disrespectful as she’s disobeying her parent’s, doing things behind their backs and doing things that is strictly forbidden when it comes to them. Although she’s shown as rebellious, she liked Romeo before she found out that he was a Montigue, which shows that she’s not actually trying to be, but she is.
During this scene Capulet becomes angry, and it shows in a few lines. His threatening tone towards Juliet is shown by the lines “My fingers itch” and “soft take me with you wife”. The soft tone in his voice, which he uses to comfort her, is replaced with selfishness and the feeling of flabbergasteredness. His flabbergasteredness is shown when he asks Lady Capulet “How will she none?” He later imitates Juliet’s voice to insult her. His voice rises to a whiny, high pitched stupid little girl’s voice, which shows that he only thinks of her as a little girl at the time being. As Capulet being even angrier, growling softly with his voice, Juliet tries to manipulate him by kneeling down and begging to him. She seems weak on the outside but on the inside she is scheming a plan and also manipulative to try and get her own way with things.
After Capulet leaves the room, restraining from hitting Juliet but frustrated with how angry he is, the lights on stage go dim and red. This is to represent the anger, but to show that as he’s left it’s not really there as much. Juliet seeks help in what to do from the Nurse, but she walks away as she can’t help. She knows that Romeo killed Tybalt and so she doesn’t want to help as revenge.
