William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet At the beginning of the play Romeo and Juliet, Juliet is portrayed as

a totally obedient girl, especially towards her parents. This is

clearly depicted in her language. The pressures that she faces as a

girl living in the sixteenth century are also very clear, such as her

father. We do not see anything of him for a long time, indicating a

poor father/daughter relationship, yet he appears to make all her

decisions for her, and she always complies, one example being an

arranged marriage. Juliet changes dramatically the night that she

meets Romeo. One example of this being when she lies to her closest

ally, Nurse, when she walks in on her talking her thoughts for Romeo.

This is so significant as she has an excellent relationship with

Nurse, who is effectively her mother. As the play continues, Juliet

appears to spend more time alone, dedicated to her thoughts about

Romeo and the situations she finds herself in, given in the form of

soliloquys. She also starts to make use of oxymorons and irony,

displaying a changing character.

At the beginning of the play, the audience is shown Juliet's

personality, as well as seeing how Juliet is raised and treated.

Juliet is portrayed as a child who is extremely obedient and

constantly behaves in an exemplary manner. She seems overly obedient

and docile. This is largely due to the fact that she always does as

she's told (as she is used to being told what to do) and she does not

have a good relat...

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...The Prince seems to realize how sad and ironic the whole situation is

and fittingly ends the play by stating; "For never was a story of more

woe, than this of Juliet and Romeo".

During the course of the play, we see Juliet's character constantly

developing. At the start, Juliet has been very much hidden away and

kept in the dark about life and has grown up in very comfortable

surroundings and is extremely obedient, especially towards her

parents. However, a dramatic reform of her whole character occurs the

night she meets Romeo, without knowing he was a Montague, her family's

rival. Juliet lies and turns to deceit for her own means. She has also

developed a far more intricate personality and character. Such changes

have been illustrated by her use of language such as irony, oxymorons,

soliloquys being a few examples.