How Juliet Gains the Audience's Sympathy in Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

1202 Words3 Pages

How Juliet Gains the Audience's Sympathy in Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare Juliet is characterised against the background of fighting and hatred. Her love develops into undying loyalty. Shakespeare’s’ stagecraft and language choice strongly influences the audiences reactions to Juliet’s erratic mood changes and actions. The expectations of Elizabethan audiences were that children should always obey and respect their parents so the audience were probably very surprised at how Juliet acted in the play. Most families didn’t expect their children to marry just because of love. They expected them to marry into the right family or class, and not to marry without their parent’s permission or blessing. The tradition in most plays and life in Elizabethan times was that the couple should court each other for some time and then maybe get married. In Elizabethan times there was a lot of belief in fate and destiny which was closely linked to the stars. People may have changed their life dramatically just because of a dream or what a fortune teller may have told them. In act 1 scene 5 we find out who Juliet is and that she is a Capulet. When Juliet first sees Romeo they seem to fall in love for as they go to speak to each other they don’t seem to care about the danger of anyone seeing them. Juliet seems to have been charmed by Romeo’s use of language and cleverness of twisting her words so; this may have been why they fell in love so quickly. It is a very romantic scene because the sonnet they say together intensifies the scene “O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do:” This also shows that Juliet is easily seduced by the poetic language. The mood of the scene is also saddening at the end when they find out they are each a member of conflicting families ”my only love sprung from my only hate” the oxymoron’s posed from both of them to express their feelings. In act 2 scene 2 Juliet seems to be in love with Romeo from only their

Open Document