Juliet’s role as a daughter in the 16th century was to do as she was told. She should behave well and treat her elders with respect as this is how the nurse has bought her up. Daughters of a wealthy man are expected to be married off to a wealthy family.
Juliet wants love from her marriage, and she has got this with Romeo. I do not think she wants safety and security because Romeo cannot give her this. She is grateful to Capulet for going to the trouble of finding a husband for her ‘but thankful you have’ but she isn’t able to marry Paris. Juliet is a bit devious in the play as well. In the scene before she takes the potion from Friar Lawrence, she agrees to marry Paris. I think this is because she is worried that when she takes her potion that it might kill her, so she apologises to Capulet and agrees to marry Paris so if she does die, she wont be on bad terms with her family. Capulet is ecstatic that Juliet wants her marry the man he has chosen ‘my heart is wondrous light’. An Elizabethan audience would be really shocked that Juliet has gone behind Capulets back and married Romeo. Most of the audience would be against Juliet. A modern day audience would be more shocked that men used to treat their daughters like Capulet did and would be supporting Juliet.
Capulet becomes very angry with Juliet in act 3 scene 5 and we see a very nasty side of him. Instead of trying to find out why Juliet doesn’t want to marry Paris, he gets really worked up and throws insults at his daughter ‘young baggage’, ‘green-sickness carrion’ and ‘you tallow face’. The play is written in short sharp words in a listing technique, this shows a strong opinion and in this case, anger ‘day, work, night, play’ and ‘hang, beg, starve, die’. He is angry at Juliet because he’s gone to a lot of trouble to find a suitable husband that he thinks his daughter will like ‘to have her matched’ and shouts at Juliet because she wont agree to marry him. Capulet is enraged at Juliet and thinks she is not thankful for what he has done for her ‘doth she not give us thanks.’ I think he is also worried about his reputation and what other people will think if they knew his daughter disobeyed him and won’t marry her chosen husband. ‘My fingers itch’ shows that he is fuming with rage at her so much that he wants to hit her. This will make the audience think that Capulet doesn’t care about Juliet and that he doesn’t understand how she feels. All he’s interested in is power, money and marrying Juliet off.
In act 4 scene 2 Juliet tells her father that she’s changed her mind and will marry Paris and try to love him ‘and gave him what becomed love I might’ This is because she doesn’t want to go to sleep being on bad terms with her parents in case it goes wrong and she doesn’t wake up. Capulet believing that she wants to marry Paris shows that he doesn’t know his daughter very well as he can’t tell when she is lying.
At the end of the play when Juliet and Romeo have both died, we see Capulet in a different way. He finds out why his daughter didn’t want to marry Paris. Him and Montague realise that their grudge has gone on long enough as their children are now dead as a result ‘sacrifices of our enmity’. Capulet does show love for his daughter, but only after she has died. Capulet must feel bad for knowing that he is the cause of Juliet’s death but I think he also felt humiliated that his daughter went behind his back and married his enemy’s son.
In conclusion to my essay the relationship isn’t very strong. They don’t know much about each other, they don’t trust each other and aren’t very close. Shakespeare puts the two characters in different situations to let us think this and gives both of them very strong personalities. I think Shakespeare has written about this kind of relationship because of the way his family might have treated him or maybe because he didn’t like the way fathers were allowed to treat their daughters.
