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

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