Juliet - C

• "Madam I am here. What is your will?" - A1 S3

  • submissive to the will of her parents - address her mother using a formal pronoun "madam" and she poses a question, demonstrating the respect she shows her mother in that she is willing to do as she asks
  • In answer to her mother's question of whether she thinks of marriage - "an honour [she] dream/s not of" - 'honour' to distract from the idea that she is not keen to marry
  • conventional for women to marry whoever their father might deem a suitable partner, without complaint - any deny to such instruction was unheard of
• Juliet appears from the opening to be a typically passive and obedient aristocratic daughter, doing as her father pleases, but the flourishes in her language and subtle disagreements with her parents foreshadow her later betrayal
• Comparison

  • How Juliet behaves around her parents in comparison to how confident and witty she is around Romeo is demonstrative of parental relationships of the time being primarily based on respect and obedience. It shows Juliet to lack emotional support from her parents which is a factor that contributes to her downfall later in the play.
• "lips that they must use in prayer" - A1 S5

  • discouraging his attempts to kiss her
  • her mention of "saints" not only shows her to be knowledgeable and able to dispense that knowledge in a witty fashion, but also able to take control of a situation
• "sweet, sweet nurse" - A2 S5

  • repetition paired with an endearing tone - uses enjambement which is symbolic of the extent of the love she has for the nurse, in comparison to the short, answers she gives her mother
  • In Elizabethan society, children were expected to treat their parents with the upmost respect - however, there tended to be a lack of emotional support in parental relationships and Juliet seems to acquire the maternal love she lacks from her nurse
  • she was breastfed by the Nurse ( as were many aristocratic children) - makes sense why she was close with Juliet
• • the nurse, parallel to Friar Lawrence, encourages Juliet to marry Romeo, not for any political reasons, but rather, it seems, because she is a little senseles
  • nurse - comical in previous scenes because of her foolish, dramatic nature, and thus it would not be wrong to assume that she might not be the best influence for Juliet
  • Juliet has a close, maternal-like relationships with the nurse. In fact, the words she uses to address her "sweet", "sorry", "good", create a semantic field of endearment
• • Her animosity towards Romeo is such a contrast to the passionate love she has expressed for him. She declares him a "dove-feathered raven", continuing the semantic field of nature but also evoking imagery of dark versus light. Her language represents the inner turmoil she feels, the conflict of her hatred being as strong as her love for Romeo.
• "let day in, let life out" - A3 S3

  • summarises the obligation she feels to let Romeo leave but how depressed she is about it
  • Juliet is haunted by obligation and the dramatically ironic thing is that later in this scene, her father orders her to marry Paris, yet another obligation - unable to escape
  • This scene, however, allows her to be more vocal about her frustrations, even if it is simply to nature; she is able to express her anger towards her obligations.
• " O bid me leap, than marry Paris" - A4 S1

  • no longer passive but direct with her emotions. The juxtaposition of leaping to her death to marriage communicates her disdain for it
  • Through her direct and aggressive language, love is shown to be a corruptive yet freeing force. Love has made her selfish in that she no longer cares about her family's desires, only her own
• "will be brief" - A5 S3

  • harsh reminder of how desperate she is to be with her lover in death - spends the whole play speaking about her feelings and using language to express herself and yet when it comes to her death, she is "brief"
  • she might have been able to be with Romeo, if not for her family's feud - he is an affluent, well-respected man
  • Shakespeare uses Juliet's death to remind the audience of the tragic consequences of feuds and how they might be harmful to those who are blameless - shows hate to be counterproductive and love to always win
• O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon - A2

  • Romeo's attempt to swear by the moon aligns with traditional poetic expressions of love
  • Shakespeare shows Juliet as wiser and more spiritually grounded than Romeo
  • Juliet warns Romeo against swearing love on the changing moon, linking stability in love to faithfulness , a virtue tied to Christian marriage
• Good father, I beseech you on my knees - A3

  • Juliets desperate plea illustrates the patriarchal power dynamic within the capulet household where her father holds absolute authority over her future - powerless position as a woman in this society forced to beg for autonomy over her life - constraints imposed by patriarchal structure
  • 'beseech' immense pressure and lack of freedom due to her fathers uncompromising stance
  • attempt to defy the fate her father wishes to impose upon her by demanding autonomy over her future marriage - bold stance against societal expectations - struggle against the predetermined path others seek to lay out for her - woman's fortunate being in hands of male relatives