Juliet

• start of play: innocent and young and marriage has never crossed her mind and she obeys her parents.

  However, after meeting Romeo, she changes her attitude and becomes more impulsive with her decisions and stands up against her father.
• Her impulsivity about marriage causes a Shakespearean audience to disapprove of the improper behaviour of young women in this time.
• She is very young -> Shakespeare deliberately has done this create an idea that young girls are more impulsive and therefore need to be controlled buy their fathers (patriarchy) and by promoting dynastical marriages.
• inexperienced -> "yet a stranger to the world" (Lord Capulet) but at only thirteen she has to deal with arranged marriage, secret love, fake suicide, death of her cousin, the death of her husband and then the decision to stab herself.
• It is seen by an audience that Juliet is rebelling against her role in society. She is marrying in secret -> defying fate/God and then defying her parents. Shakespeare has deliberately done this in his tragedy to highlight this rebellion and impulsivity leads to her death.
• "too rash, too unadvis'd, too sudden"

  Juliet shows that she is more mature than Romeo here.

  She uses a rule of three to tell him that their love is happening too quickly and that there could be some bad consequences if they let it get too serious too fast.

  This foreshadows how their death is caused by their impulsivity.
• "My only love sprung from my only hate"

  oxymoron/repetition emphasising how unfortunate Juliet thinks she is. She has "only" one love and "only" one hate, and so the fact that they are both linked seems highly unfortunate. It also continues the idea that Juliet is young, pure and inexperienced as he is her only love.
• "O happy dagger"

  oxymoron symbolises Juliet's willingness to use violence to escape life without Romeo. Represents her desperation and determination to be with her 'love' and will resort to drastic measures.
• "My grave is like my wedding bed"

  foreshadows Juliet's tragic fate. It reveals her intense passion and the depth of her love for Romeo, suggesting that without him, she would rather die than live a life devoid of love. The imagery of death and marriage intertwines here, highlighting the play’s recurring themes of love and mortality.
• "What's in a name that which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet"

   In this famous line, Juliet reflects on the insignificance of names, suggesting that they do not define the essence of a person. She argues that even if Romeo were not a Montague, he would still be the same person she loves. This quote underscores the central theme of the conflict between individual desire and societal expectations, as well as the irrationality of feuds based on family names.