Romeo and Juliet's Emotional Development in the Play

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Romeo and Juliet's Emotional Development in the Play

In the play, both characters change dramatically. Shakespeare conveys

this well and throughout the play he devises different confrontations

and conversations which indicate the 2 main characters' personality

change.

In the beginning, Romeo loves after a woman he has not even had a

meaningful conversation with. He sulks and complains about his

emotional misfortune with Rosaline.

Courtly love is not true love. Courtly love is arranged love, where

people marry for status, and love is controlled. His sentences rhyme

and his words seem calculated. They come from his head, not his heart.

"Alas that Love, whose view is muffled still,

Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will." Romeo's love is

clearly contrived. He follows the Courtly Love tradition. This couplet

rhymes. It seems as though Romeo has planned all of his complaints

beforehand, and he is in love with being in love rather that being in

love properly.

Juliet, at the start of the play is inexperienced and vulnerable. She

is wrapped in cotton wool by the Nurse, smothered and not allowed her

own insight on the world. She had never been in love before she met

Romeo. She would have carried on with life, and married the first man

her mother set her up with. This almost happens. Paris, a kinsman of

the Prince, represents one of the social pressures breaking in on her

intimate relationship with Romeo.

Juliet agrees to marry Paris, but not for the cause of love.

"I'll look to like, if looking liking move;

But on more deep will I endart mine eye

Than your consent gives strength to make it fly." Juliet would only be

marrying Paris because it would please Lady Capulet. This further

shows Juliet's inability to make her own decisions, the lack of will

to make her own decisions and the great influence her mother has on

her life. This, is all of Juliet's character at the start of the play,

there is no other side to her.

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