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Shakespeare and the theme of love
Romeo character development romeo and juliet
Romeo character development romeo and juliet
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Juliet’s love and loyalty towards Romeo, and her developing character do not only play an important role in motivating her in speaking the lines that she does, but also in motivating her actions. Despite all the current events that have occurred; events that have affected her state of mind, Juliet decides to remain true and faithful to Romeo. Juliet’s state of mind at this point in the play definitely revolves around this idea of light vs. dark – her fears and hopes. After hearing about the loss of her cousin, Tybalt, she faces the obstacle in which she is forced to choose which path to take. Friar Lawrence gives Juliet the opportunity to run away with Romeo, but in order to do so; she must leave behind her remaining loved ones. He proposes her with a small vial of ‘sleeping potion’ that will stop her heart and breath and make her appear dead to those around her for about forty hours – enough time for Romeo to come and rescue her. Despite the idea of leaving behind her family and past, Juliet has no struggle in deciding what to do, because she immediately and impulsively agrees to consume this strange vial. Although agreeing to do so, however, Juliet’s doubts and fears begin to overwhelm her as she grows more and more hysterical and terrified of the possible outcomes in following through with Friar Lawrence’s plan. Juliet is alone in her chamber as she begins to weigh her options and struggles to be certain of what she must do in order to reunite with Romeo. As she contemplates, she only begins to grow more fearful of the possibilities and outcomes. Juliet’s fear of being “stifled in the vault,” where she will be surrounded by pitch darkness, contradicts her earlier desire of the night and its blackness (... ... middle of paper ... ... her hope and faith towards Romeo. Although aware the probability of her imminent death, she follows through with this plan because she is so infatuated with this sacred and holy aspect of love. Shakespeare’s use of imagery, illustrating the petrifying probabilities only emphasizes Juliet’s love for Romeo, because despite all of these possibilities, she takes the risk anyways. Juliet’s actions allow the audience to better understand Juliet’s undying hope and love for Romeo and their relationship, as well as her desperation for their unity, even if it means throwing everything else away. Through Juliet’s love and loyalty and developing character, one is able to better understand why Juliet is so motivated to perform the actions and speak the lines that she did. Despite the consequence of her options, she follows through due to her increasing love for Romeo.
4. Juliet’s attitude changes because she knows that Romeo heard her expressing her love for him and she gets worried that things are moving too fast for her.
Unlike Romeo’s adolescents Juliet once again breaks free from that stereotype right before she is going to drink the potion that makes her look dead. She is worried about if she “wake[s] before the time that Romeo comes to redeem [her]” (4.3,35-end). By this she means that she fears that Romeo will not be there by the time she wakes up and she will be stuck in the tomb with all the dead bodies which will inturn make her go crazy. Juliet though she is not as bad as Romeo still makes some adolescent choices that really affect he life like marrying Romeo and also killing herself.
In an attempt to push away from medieval love conventions and her father's authority, Shakespeare's Juliet asserts sovereignty over her sexuality. She removes it from her father's domain and uses it to capture Romeo's love. Critic Mary Bly argues that sexual puns color Juliet's language. These innuendoes were common in Renaissance literature and would have been recognized by an Elizabethan audience. Arguably, Juliet uses sexual terms when speaking to Romeo in order to make him aware of her sexuality. When he comes to her balcony, she asks him, "What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?" (2.1.167). Bly asserts that "satisfaction in her hands, becomes a demure play on the sating of desire" (108). Following this pun, Juliet proposes marriage. She teases Romeo with sexual thoughts and then stipulates that marriage must precede the consummation of their love. Juliet uses "death" in a similar sense. She asks night to "Give me my Romeo, and when I shall die / Take him and cut him out in little stars" (3.2.21-22). Death holds a double meaning in these lines. It connotes both "ceasing to be and erotic ecstasy" (Bly 98). Based upon this double meaning, one can infer that "she sweetly asks 'civil night' to teach her how to lose the game of love she is about to play for her virginity" (Wells 921). She tells her nurse, "I'll to my wedding bed, / And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!" (3.2.136-137). Placing death opposite Romeo highlights the irony of the situation; both death and Romeo should claim her maidenhead together. These sexual puns reveal Juliet's awareness of her sexuality. She entices Romeo, forcing her sexuality to act as emotional currency.
In Act IV, scene III of The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, Juliet is forced to make a decision; take a sleeping potion gifted to her by Friar Laurence and risk possibly being stuck in the Capulet family tomb, or marry Paris. To her, marrying Paris is not an option and so she drinks the vile. Although, before consuming the Friar’s remedy, Juliet expresses her worries in her soliloquy. To do this, Shakespeare manipulates imagery and the rhetorical device of questioning to reveal his main character’s deepest and darkest fears.
to look after your child. It was a show of wealth, so that if you have
In the play of Romeo and Juliet, the reader is introduced to two young star-crossed lovers who hope to fall in love and have the happily ever after. However, through the twists and turns of the play, the reader finds the story has a twisted ending. For the project, my group chose Juliet as our portrayed character. In our portrayal of Juliet, the character is well summarized as well as the characters role in the play. Beginning at her head, we summarize Juliet’s family life in a discrete but well thought out way. Upon Juliet’s head sits a golden headband to represent being of a higher family. While Juliet is no princess, she is the only child of Lord and Lady Capulet. “Hang thee, young baggage! Disobedient wretch! I tell thee what: get thee to church o' Thursday, Or never after look me in the face. Speak not. Reply not. Do not answer me. My fingers itch.—Wife, we scarce thought us blest That God had lent us but this only child, But now I see this one is one too much And that we have a curse in having her. Out on her, hilding!”(3.5.160-168). Because she is the only daughter of the Lord and Lady, one can suspect a life filled with pressure for young Juliet.
She does not fall for Romeo’s outlandish declarations about love despite recuperating his feelings because she is practical about love. Juliet does not want her romance to be a joke; she does not want Romeo to “swear at all;/ Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self,/ Which is the god of my idolatry,/ And I’ll believe thee” (II, ii, 112-116), Juliet wants honest conversation, void of senseless vows. Juliet does not want to waste her time with a romance that will not become marriage, hence why “If that thy bent of love be honourable,/ Thy purpose marriage, send me word tomorrow” (II, ii, 143-145). She wants Romeo to follow through with his word.
...ught about getting married to someone. When her mother asked her of marriage, it was something she had not dreamed of. Because of the use of Shakespearean language, Shakespeare is able to show his readers the change Juliet goes through throughout the play by the language and the tone he uses. Juliets love for Romeo changes her. Before she would always tell everything to her mother and do what she was asked to do. But then she decided to marry Romeo without consulting anyone in her family. She did things that she would have never done if she hadn't met Romeo. Juliet is a dynamic character because of the changes she goes through. Shakespeare is able to show the audience that a character no matter how they are in the beginning of the story, their decision and the events that influence their lives can change them making them a dynamic character.
... and is ready to swear the vows of marriage with Romeo. Juliet’s reckless and hasty decisions demonstrate her impulsiveness. Juliet’s love for Romeo largely dictates her brash decisions and speech. If Romeo did not enter Juliet’s life, she would never have known the hurt and heartbreak she experiences throughout the tragedy.
To begin, Juliet challenges her family expectations in favour of living a life where she can express her love to Romeo, who is her family’s enemy, freely. For example, as Romeo and Juliet speak with each other on the balcony, she states “Deny thy father and refuse thy name; or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I’ll no longer be a Capulet” (II, ii, 100-102). Juliet understands society will not allow her to be with Romeo, a Montague, because he is the family’s (Capulet’s) enemy. But due to her intense love toward Romeo, she is ready to give up her family ...
The significance of Juliet’s change in character is to show her accelerated transformation from a young girl into a mature woman. In the beginning of the play Juliet is unable to make her own decisions. However after her meeting with Romeo, Juliet becomes more assertive and defends her love for Romeo. In conclusion, individuals cannot be forced to love; love is nurtured and nourished but also is always put to test.
Juliet receives a vial containing a potion from Friar Lawrence, who has a plan that will make Juliet appear as if she is dead, so that when she awakens, she will unite with Romeo. Juliet considers several consequences before drinking the potion, such as losing her sanity or being buried alive. Despite her reasoning, she summons the courage to drink the potion, exclaiming “Romeo, Romeo, Romeo! Here’s drink. I drink to thee” (Shakespeare 4.4.58). Instead of Juliet making a logical decision to avoid drinking the potion, she follows through with her emotions. Juliet has an obsession with Romeo, in which she is willing to take a risk on the assumption that Romeo will be there when she awakens. She recklessly abandons the fears she once had because her logic is clouded by her immense feelings for Romeo. Fears such as the friar poisoning the potion are quite realistic, since he wants to avoid suffering punishment for secretly marrying two teenagers from rival families. Juliet is so deeply lost in her emotions that she is prompted to take her own life into her hands. Infatuation can take control of someone and cause one to make rash judgements, similar to the one Juliet makes by drinking this potion for Romeo. The couple’s infatuation is seen again when Romeo
In the poem “Juliet’s Soliloquy”, Juliet is alone in her chamber as she holds her vessel of poison. As Juliet expresses her fears in the heart-felt soliloquy, the complete severity of the situation weighs heavy on her mind. She thinks, “What if the potion is unsuccessful or does not work?” She wonders has the Friar deceived her and given her real poison instead of the nonpoisonous, so that no one discovers that he dishonorably wedded her to Romeo in disclosure. Juliet quickly gets rid of these difficult and unbearable situations and thoughts to be untrue. She still worries that she will find herself conscious in the hot and cr...
Also the night will shield them from anyone seeing when they make love to each other. From this we can tell that darkness is one of the main themes in the story as it revolves around tragedy and misfortune because many characters die. Juliet shows us that she wants the darkness to come when she says: 'And bring in cloudy night immediately. Spread thy close curtain, love performing night' Not only does this quote indicate to us that Juliet wishes for the night to come however, it tells us that she wishes to make love to Romeo: 'So tedious is this day' Also this quote tells us that she cannot wait for the day to be over.
The power of love controlled Romeo and Juliet's actions. They were so head over heels in love for each other that they were willing to do anything for their partner even if it meant to the extreme of things. Outside of “Romeo and Juliet”, a wise man named Hercules said “People do crazy things when they are in love…” This is perfectly said and true especially in showing Romeo and Juliet’s actions. Romeo and Juliet had only known each other for a day but their love had already taken over them. When Romeo and Juliet were confessing their love for each other during the balcony scene, Romeo said, “With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls,/For stony limits cannot hold love out, /And what love can do, that dares love attempt./Therefore, thy kinsman are no stop to me."(Act II, Scene 2, Lines 71-74) Romeo is saying love will make a man try anything and even a stone wall couldn't keep him out. Love had the authority to make Romeo fearlessly climb the walls risking getting caught. Love seized Juliet’s actions. Juliet was so in love that she was willing to drink the potion and appear to be dead all to be with the banished Romeo in the end. “God knows we shall meet again./ I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins… (ACT IV, Scene 3, Lines 15-16) Juliet was scared about doing this because she didn't know if it would work right or turn h...