Act 3 scene 5 is connected to all the other scenes by the tension we have in this scene, the tension is one of the most important factors about this scene as the conversations start with Romeo and Juliet, then around Juliet and her mom lady Capulate, lady Capulate and her dad lord Capulate. All the conversations are around Juliet or about her; she always has an intersection in them. This scene is where everything starts to go wrong.
In this act, Romeo has to leave after his night with Juliet after they have married just in time before Lady Capulet enters to tell Juliet she is to be married to Paris which throws the whole plan but when she refuses to carry out the marriage and her father enters the scene goes into a steep climax. Then at the end of the scene Juliet talks to the nurse the person she has spent all her life with turns on her and says she should marry Paris. This is a very dramatic and important scene to the play and needs a lot of different techniques to keep the audience interested.
As the audience already knows that Juliet has been told that she is going to marry Paris earlier to make her happier although its makes her feel worse as she is going to break the law, she is already married to Romeo. Romeo in the beginning of the scene he has to go home before anyone sees him. As her mom wanted to talk to her in the beginning about what is bothering her.
The scene opens with Romeo and Juliet saying their farewells to each other, Juliet says to Romeo to start the scene Iambic pentameter (blank verse)
“Art thou so, love, say, ay dear husbands, friend?
I must hear from thee everyday in the hour,
For in a minute there are many days,
O, by this count I shall be much in years
Ere I again behold my Romeo!”
This is presenting all the stages that Romeo and Juliet have been going though since they met each other, the love to a husband and a friend. In the previous scene the audience has heard that Capulet offered Juliet’s hand in marriage to Paris. We understand why he does this, but we know many things that Capulet does not know, this is one of the main key points that Shakespeare likes to show dramatic irony.
We can see why Juliet will not be happy with her fathers decision of marrying Paris. Once Romeo has gone, Lady Capulet tells Juliet she has to marry Paris, but Juliet refuses as her father angrily insists that she has to marry Paris or be thrown out of the house. Later on when Juliet is alone with the Nurse, she asks the nurse for her advise on what to do, but she just replies saying that she should marry Paris. Juliet is astounded by this thought and pretends that she agrees with what the Nurse has just said. This is where Juliet thinks that the only person that she can turn to is Fair Lawrence. Juliet feels very alone in the world now, turns to the audience, and then explains what she is going to do next. This is what we call a monologue.
In our time people will accept what is going though Juliet’s mind, the thought that she is going towards her heart not allowing herself to get into a mess by marrying Paris, but in Shakespearian times the audience will not approve anything that she is putting herself into. When people fort married more than once they would curse you and say that your name will be damned, this means going to hell.
Only the audience can actually see what is really going on. In this scene Juliet speaks ambiguously, for example that the audience knows what Juliet’s secrets are as for herself. The nurse knows a lot of secrets that Juliet’s parents know, for Juliet married Romeo and later on in the play we find out that she id deceiving Juliet’s intentions.
Throughout the whole scene, Shakespeare makes dramatic use of secrets. As the characters think they know what is going on, but the truth is far from what they are thinking. Capulet this that Tybalt’s death has upset his daughter terribly. Lady Capulet thinks the same as Capulate. Juliet knows about her marriage to Romeo, but cant explain to her parents of what she has done. Juliet also doesn’t know about her parents planed to marry Paris until her father tells her. The nurse, at this point knows all Juliet’s secrets, but later lands up knowing far from the truth, because they hardly speak ever again after the Nurse deceived her. All the language used in this I’d used for dramatic irony, the fact that the audience knows things that some of the characters know makes it more interesting. The Assumptions that are made by the characters are
Sarcasm, Puns. Which we learn later on that the characters don’t know as much as they think they do assume is true.
This scene makes the audience think again about the thoughts on the Nurse. She has always seems to care for Juliet and understand what matters when she says,
“Faith, here it is.
Romeo is banish’d, and all the world do nothing,
That he dares ne’er come back to challenge you;
Or, if he do, it needs must be stealth.
Then, since the case so stands as not it doth,
I think it best you married with the county.
o, he’s a lovely gentleman!
Romeo’s a dishclout to him: an eagle, madam,
Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye
As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,
I think you are happy in this second match,
For it excels you first: or if it did not,
Your first is dead; or ’twere as good as he were,
As living here and you have no use of him.”
This passage from the book tells us that the Nurse hadn’t seen anything as clearly as we expected her to. The Nurse’s motivation is that she would have a second marriage and forget the first marriage all over. The nurse also sees what Juliet’s parents favour her to do.
Juliet moments later after being with Romeo, has been put into a very difficult situation. At the same time she uses allot of dramatic irony saying that things have a different real life meaning from what appears on the surface, as well as Juliet being brave. Lady Capulet at first seems concerned for her daughters feelings, moments after she lands up having an argument with Juliet. By now Lady Capulet just cant take anymore tension so she passes all the arguing onto Capulet.
Both parents Capulet and Lady Capulet use interesting thoughts for Juliet’s tears. Lady Capulet thinks that Juliet is trying to wash Tybalt from his grave, because she is crying so much- she tells her daughter that she is crying too much over this cause. Lady Capulet means that Juliet is over doing all the signs of grief towards Tybalt’s death, the two contrasts shows antithesis.
Then Capulet describes Juliet as a sea, a boat and wind. Her eyes as the sea, because she is crying in tears and water represents the sea. Her body is the boat as she is floating in her own tears. Her sighs as the winds, “Who, raging with thy tears and they with them, / without a sudden calm, will overset / thy tempest-tossed body.” Juliet’s worrying about breaking the law too much, and she is in a bad state, she doesn’t like Paris for love, she loves Romeo and nobody will accept that so she wont say just yet what she feels about him. Capulet uses a extended metaphors.
Capulet cares about his daughter Juliet, but he is told that Paris has already agreed to marrying Juliet. This causes Capulet to get angry and starts to think that Juliet is ungrateful. Usually modern audiences should remember that arranged marriages are normal for people of Juliet’s class, and that Paris, a wealthy man connected to the prince, is a very good prospective husband for her. Juliet is beyond the usual age or marriage, as its her father didn’t want to wish to arrange Juliet to marry anyone. So know he feels he has spoiled her all too much, but then got it depreciated.
At the and of act 3, scene 5, Juliet is know alone and that from know on she will not trust the Nurse because of the Nurse deceiving her. She only speaks to the Nurse one more time in the play that is very brief. It is shocking to think that the Nurse cared about more Juliet marrying the right man in her wealth, than about Juliet’s eternal soul and heart, which is the love for Romeo.
The language that Shakespeare used in this play is one of the most important things. When Juliet says her speech in this scene it doesn’t only have one meaning but two. When Lady Capulet says that Romeo has caused grief by killing Tybalt, Juliet agreed that Romeo has made her upset. That she would like to get her hands on him. By placing the word ‘dead’ between two sentences, makes Juliet’s mother think she wants Romeo ‘dead’, although what she is really saying is that her heart is dead really because of him.
When Juliet swears ‘by Saint Peter’s church and Peter too’, her mother seems to think otherwise from what Juliet is really thinking. Lady Capulet thinks that she is using strong thought -by using that phrase she ‘by Saint Peter’s church and Peter too’ this is telling us that Saint Peter decides who goes to heaven or hell- she is swearing that the Saint will disagree to a second marriage. Later, Juliet speaks sarcastically to the Nurse, that she has comforted her ‘marvellous much’. With this it’s a suggestion of ‘marrying’ Paris. At this time she has thought about what the Nurse did to her, she went back on her word of being a good friend.
Juliet’s last speech in this scene, is showing what she is thinking in this point of time. She had this sill quay because she was thinking so many thoughts of anger, and sadness.
Capulet becomes very angry, he uses language strongly- so that the adjective describing the word ‘proud’ becomes both a verb and a noun; “Proud me no prouds.” finally he reminds us of the power that he has over Juliet by speaking these words as though Juliet was a thoroughbred horse, which he can sell at his own will- “Fettle your fine joints”, he meaning to say that he must prepare herself for the marriage.
The way that Shakespeare is using the correct language and tension in this act and scene so that the audience can feel that they are excited on what is going to happen next, more like a cliff hanger. These key points that I have put into this piece supports the examining of Shakespeare’s way of righting as well as my examples I have put in. They all show the tension but also the feelings that the characters bring forward to the audience and demonstrates that all my work that I have put into this works together.
