Juliet's Increasing Sense of Isolation in Act 3 Scene 5 of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet is a play by Shakespeare that contains all the elements of a love story as well as a tragedy. They are a pair of ‘star-crossed lovers’ who go through a long ride with many ups and downs before they can finally be together, but not in the way that you would imagine. In the play Juliet is a maturing teenager that hasn’t yet gotten much of a say in what happens to her. Throughout the play she is ignored by her parents and restrained from living her life the way she wants to. In this essay I am going to focus on Act 3 Scene 5, in which we see Juliet in a different light. I will write about how Shakespeare conveys Juliet’s increasing sense of isolation in this scene, with the main points being the language he makes her use, stage directions and how the people around her – such as the Nurse, Lady Capulet and Capulet – treat her.

At the beginning of Act 3 Scene 5, Romeo and Juliet are together in Juliet’s bedroom. Juliet tries to persuade Romeo to stay but then worries it will be unsafe for him and reluctantly encourages him to leave. Juliet’s use of language shows the audience that she really wants to stay with Romeo, this is particularly shown when she says ‘Wilt thou be gone?...It was the nightingale, and not the lark, that pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear.’ (3.5 L1-3) Here, Juliet is denying the fact that morning has come because she wants to be with Romeo. We know that she wishes it was night because nightingales sing at night, and she tells Romeo that it was a nightingale he heard. Juliet’s denial is shown particularly when she says ‘not the lark’ because she uses a strong negative word to try and convince Romeo that it is not morning. The audience can tell that she already has a fear of abandonment at t...

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...solation much further as she then really had no one to turn to. Despite the ongoing conflict with her parents and their obvious lack of understanding, this was not as hurtful to Juliet because it was what she expected from them. I think that Shakespeare used dramatic irony in this play very cleverly because keeping the marriage a secret would have been hard for Juliet and would have made her feel isolated because she wasn’t even able to tell her parents about it. I think Juliet’s main part in the play was to rebel, and the reasons for this would have originated from her sense of isolation and the bad relationship she had with her parents. I think Romeo and Juliet is a very tragic play. Had there not have been rivalry between the families, Romeo and Juliet would have been a happy couple together and so this play just shows the extent of how terrible hatred can be.