One of Shakespeare’s most famous plays ever written is Romeo and Juliet. The play is based on two families, The Montagues and The Capulets, who are never at peace. Their families have always been rivals and when two young lovers, Juliet Capulet and Romeo Montague, each discover that their love can never be accepted in their society they are forced to keep their illicit romance a hidden secret. Soon their lives would be torn apart due to arranged marriages and the egos of disdainfully proud, haughty family members from both sides of the family. Death, destruction and disaster strike and cause several members of each family to be sorely lost.
The play is set in Elizabethan England where a typical woman’s life was surpassingly different then, from a typical English woman’s life now. For example, upper class Elizabethan women were incredibly subservient to the men and were raised to believe they were inferior and that men knew far better. They were used to form powerful alliances with other leading families in their towns and cities and arranged marriages were forced upon them. As well Elizabethan women were tutored from home, as there were no schools for girls. They were not allowed to go on to university and were not given the right to vote.
Life for lower class Elizabethan women were worse, they were also expected to obey men without hesitance and would not receive any form of education. They would have to learn how to manage a household and learn housewifery duties.
Throughout the play we feel a great deal of sympathy and tenderness towards Juliet’s yearning for harmony and freedom, as she longed to be with loving Romeo, together with her family’s acceptance.
At the beginning of the play (Act1 scene 2) Juliet’s father is speaking with Paris, a handsome wealthy young count desperate to marry Juliet. Capulet is portrayed as a loving caring father, faithful to his daughter, and seems in no hurry to marry her off. Capulet urges Paris,
“Let two more summers with her in their pride,
Make her a happy bride”
Here Shakespeare uses imagery within nature to describe Juliet as not quite ‘ripe’. The word ripe here is associated with fruit and therefore makes us think she might not be sexually matured.
You can tell Capulet cares about Juliet and is not wiling, at this moment in time, to force her to marry Paris as he says,
“Woo her gentle Paris,
Get her heart,
My will to her is just a part”
Here he is telling Paris that he is not just going to order Juliet to marry Paris, he must win her over. Juliet must want to marry Paris before he is to gain Capulet’s consent.
Another reason that he led us to believe that Capulet is a loyal, affectionate father is the way he tells Paris he must be certain that Juliet is the girl he wants to marry. He invites Paris to a grand ball hosted by the Capulets and informs him of all the other young, beautiful ladies that are going to be attending. Capulet describes them as,
“Fresh female buds”
This is a good example of alliteration but at the same time seems slightly condescending to women.
In Act 1 Scene 3 we meet Lady Capulet, (Juliet’s mother) Nurse (Juliet’s modern day equivalent of a nanny) and Juliet. Lady Capulet informs Juliet of Paris’s invite to the grand ball and how she must meet him. Our first impressions of Lady Capulet are that she seems distant and cold, as she is not sure of Juliet’s age as she says,
“She’s not fourteen”
Nurse has to remind her of Juliet’s real age. Lady Capulet seems too wrapped up in her own vanity to care for her daughter’s age. Where as Nurse, loves Juliet and seems to know her better than her own mother but at the same time comes across as rather coarse and overly chatty as she says,
“When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple of my dug,
And it felt bitter,
Pretty fool,
To see it tetchy and fall out with dug.”
Here Nurse goes into too much detail of how she was trying to stop Juliet from being breast fed as a baby, because in those days upper class women would employ a ‘wet nurse’ to breast feed their babies, as they thought themselves above such things. Nurse is probably more of a mother figure to Juliet than Lady Capulet.
Although Lady Capulet does not seem to have a lot of respect for Juliet, when Juliet speaks she shows wisdom and self-control as she says,
“I’ll look to like,
If looking like more,
But no more deep will I end art mine eye,
Than your consent gives strength to make it fly”
Here Juliet is very obedient and shows a lot of respect towards her mother. Shakespeare uses the clever juxtaposition of characters here to show the inadequacy of Lady Capulet. For example, the way in which he puts Nurse’s character, a lady who cares a lot for the welfare of Juliet, next to Lady Capulet’s character who doesn’t really come across as a loving mother to Juliet. Also how he portrays Juliet as a respectful, astute character but Lady Capulet’s character as disrespectful, self obsessed and pompous.
At the Capulet’s grand ball, where Juliet is supposed to be meting Paris, she spots Romeo Montague. It is love at first sight. Their eyes are transfixed on each other and Shakespeare goes into great detail about how crazy Romeo is for her. To show the beauty and purity if their love, Shakespeare uses rich, positive and passionate language. He also writes in rhyming couplets to create romance.
“Oh she doth teach the torches to burn bright,
It seems she hangs on the cheek of night,
Like a rich jewel in an ethiops ear”
AT the same time Shakespeare uses alliteration to add rhyme and dramatic effect and a simile to show how much more beautiful Juliet is than any other. Romeo says,
“SO shows a snowy dove trooping with crows”
Here Shakespeare has used a metaphor to emphasize more of Juliet’s sheer beauty.
At the ball Romeo and Juliet have a short moment of intimacy where Romeo tries to charm Juliet by saying,
“This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this,
My lips to blushing pilgrims ready stand to smooth rough touch with tender kiss.”
To which Juliet replies,
“Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotions shows in this; for saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.”
Here Shakespeare uses religious imagery to show how pure their love is, yet there is also a bit of flirtatious banter involved that shows us a love interest is definitely there and how well they get along together. I also think that the religious imagery heightens the status of their love.
Soon after they unearth that their families are long-life enemies and it is un-heard of for a Montague and a Capulet to ever consider getting along never towards Juliet as she whispers the heart felt line,
“My only love sprung from my only hate.”
This then sums up the dreaming of Romeo and Juliet and utter devastation of the tragic discovery.
Shakespeare creates vast quantities of sympathy for Juliet here as we watch her build up this pure passion inside her. She had gone crazy for Romeo, all the love she had felt for him had been drained from her. Shakespeare had left her, distraught, hysterical and thrown but she had no regret. There is a great contrast here between how perfect their love seemed at the start to now when they have been torn apart.
Romeo and Juliet stick together, they have a secret rendezvous and end up getting married. Our hopes are built up for them; we become entangled in all the hype of the secrecy and the element of danger. After the marriage Romeo and Juliet have intercourse to confirm the ceremony. The next morning the tension rises throughout the scene as Juliet is overwhelmed by circumstances beyond her control. Romeo says,
“What envious streaks do lace the severing clouds on yonder east”
Romeo s saying daylight is envious of their love and wants to pull the clouds apart as well as Romeo and Juliet. You get the feeling that nature is going against them. This was a common Elizabethan belief that related to the power of nature.
Juliet knows that Romeo must leave or fear them being caught but she hates the thought of it. Romeo must leave after this day.
Soon after Nurse comes bursting in and breaks up Romeo and Juliet for she knows that Lady Capulet is on her way. Throughout this scene the tension is still rising and Juliet shoos out half naked Romeo. She says.
“Then window let day in and let life out”
Shakespeare uses dramatic irony here as we, the audience, know that Juliet will not see Romeo again but she doesn’t know this. As Juliet sees Romeo jump down and escape out of the balcony she sees a vision of Romeo Drowning and dying. Everything around them slowed down as Romeo and Juliet felt so close yet so far apart and alienated. The once close lovers now felt foreign and estranged. Juliet says,
“Oh god, I have an ill-divining soul,
Me thinks I see thee now art so low,
As are dead in the bottom of a tomb”
Yet again this is another example of dramatic irony, as we know Romeo will not live. There is a strong importance of fate and predestination that Shakespeare used here. People from the Elizabethan period strongly believed in predestination and fate.
Juliet also uses dramatic irony to show us that she has to hide her true feelings from her mother,
“Indeed I never shall be satisfied with Romeo, till I behold him – dead – is my poor heart so for a kin-mans vexed”
The absolute genius of this quote is all in the placing of the word dead. The whole sentence changes depending on where you stress it. One way you can read it is “indeed I shall never be satisfied with Romeo, till I behold him [pause] Dead is my poor heart so for a kin-mans vexed” or “indeed I shall never be satisfied with Romeo, till I behold him dead [pause] is my poor heart so for a kin-mans vexed”
Juliet’s mother comes to deliver the news that she shall be married on Thursday to Paris as arranged by her father. Juliet of course declines. After all she is already married to her one true love Romeo. Her father, Capulet, is fuming he describes her as,
“Green-sickness carrion”
“Hallow faced”
“Graze where you will, you shall not house with me”
Capulet refers to her as a cow, verbally abuses her and threatens her that if she does not agree to marry Paris she will be thrown out of the house. Juliet then turns to her mother for help. Lady Capulet is extremely cruel to Juliet, she double-crosses her and sticks by her husband and washes her hands of her. She says,
“Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee”
Nurse, the one person who she counted on to stick by her also disappoints Paris when she knows fully of the circumstances.
Juliet attributed the stars and fate to her situation.
“Alack alack, that heavens should practise stratagems upon so soft a subject as myself”
She has no choice but to agree to go ahead with it.
To conclude I believe that believe that Juliet should have been more careful in her actions and planned things out a lot better and she shouldn’t have been so naive about things and then the situation may not have got so out of hand. Shakespeare creates sympathy by creating tragedy but first roping the audience in enough to really feel for the characters and keep you emotions flying all over the place. For example, when at the grand ball she is supposed to be meeting Paris but ends up with Romeo and everything is all lovely, until, they then both find out that their love will never be accepted. He also creates sympathy for Juliet by really stressing the way her whole world turns upside down and how everyone turns again her.
No comments:
Post a Comment