As Romeo comes down from the balcony, Juliet get’s a horrible vision of Romeo ‘as one dead in the bottom off a tomb’. This image will come true in the final scene when Juliet awakens from her drug – induced sleep to find Romeo dead on the floor of the Capulet tomb. Once again, images of love and death show dramatic irony, affecting the happyness of their wedding night with the foreshadowing of their coming deaths.
Lady Capulet, unaware that Juliet grieves for Romeo’s banishment rather than the death of Tybalt, tries o comfort her daughter with her plans to avenge Tybalt’s death by poisoning Romeo anticipates the method he choose to take his own life in the final act of the play. Although Romeo drinks the poison by his own hand, it is the hatred, driven in part by Lady Capulet that gives him cause.
Instead of being the mother figure to Juliet, Lady Capulet is cold and vengeful. She is like Tybalt, prepared to continue the feud without caring about the authority of the Prince, Lady Capulet gets very angry at Juliet with the refusal to marry Paris and makes Juliet even worse by saying to Juliet, ‘the fool were married to her grave’. Once again the image of Juliet’s grave as her wedding bed involves the meeting of them both, but this time dead. It’s as if Lady Capulet leads Juliet into her own fate. Juliet’s interaction with both her mother and her father in this scene confirms the failure of parental love because their sole concern is with a socially acceptable marriage that will improve the wealth and status of the Capulet family rather than the happiness of their daughter.
When Capulet refused to stop the marriage with his daughter and Paris in Act 1, Scene 2, he took out his anger on Juliet as he thought she was thinking that he was doing this just to have higher power than he has already and not about her welfare. Because of this Capulet shouts names, calling Juliet ‘baggage’ and ‘carrion’ for refusing his order. Capulet has made Juliet feel like she ain’t wanted and better off dead. In this fury, Capulet threatnens Juliet with violence and disinheritance if she continues to disobey him, ‘hang ! Beg ! Starve ! Die in the streets/ For by my soul I’ll ne’er acknowledge thee !’
Capulet makes sudden changes and turns from a normal parent into a greedy rival by giving impulsive, cruel and reckless behaviour. These changes were probably caused by the feud itself. There has been examples of this where previously he wanted to engage a sword fight with the Montagues and now he has turned on his only daughter with threats of disinheritance. He literally places her in a ‘nothing to loose’ position.
While Juliet’s parents react with extreme bitterness, Juliet handles herself with striking maturity. No longer the dutiful teenage daughter of the Capulets, she is a young woman, a bride and a wife. In response to her mother’s wish to have Romeo killed, Juliet remarks that she ‘never shall be satisfied/ with Romeo, till I behold him – dead’. Juliet’s mother interprets this an anger over Romeo killing Tybalt.
The Nurse, who has been more of a mother figure to Juliet than her biological mother, fails Juliet at this critical moment. To comfort Juliet in her desperate situation, the Nurse offers her an easy solution – marry Paris and forget the ‘dishclout’ Romeo. This solution betrays Juliet’s trust and indicates the Nurse’s inability to understand the romance between Juliet and Romeo. After all, the Nurse regards love as a temporary physical relationship, and she sees Juliet is better off marrying Paris because of the money.
Although a loyal servant, the Nurse is not family and is aware she can’t get involved in certain family problems like this one. She has been keeping Juliet’s and Romeo’s marriage a secret and now seeks to cover up Juliet’s actions.
Each member of Juliet’s primary family has abandoned her. Still a young person in need of an older person’s support, she flees to the Friar as a source of aid and counsel. Juliet’s isolation is nearly complete, and yet she is calm and resolute, as she determines to die rather thant enter into a bigamous marriage with Paris : ‘If all else fail, myself have power to die’.
In conclusion to this close analasys of Act 3 Scene 5 I think that the effect of the scene as a whole was shocking for Juliet as at the end of this scene everyone who was once trusted, loyal and supportive to Juliet has seperated from her just because of this unwanted wedding that her father has planned with Paris. This gave one extra shock to Juliet when her own loyal and trustful Nurse turned against her saying marry Paris and forget Romeo. The effect on the audience was most distraught because of the shocking seperation of Juliet and her family only because of the shocking seperation of Juliet and her family only because of a wedding that is due to the cause of greed and riches. But the most dramatic affect that took place in this scene was the Nurse going against Juliet aswell especially when throughout the play she was close and loyal to her at all times.
Also in conclusion I think that the Nurse went against her because she didn’t want to loose the household place as a Nurse and also because she has not got anyone else especially in Elizabethan times.
