When Juliet is told of the arranged wedding with Paris, she is shocked but wants to keep a stable heart for Romeo, “I will not marry yet. And when I do, I swear/ It shall be Romeo”. Juliet’s decisions are extremely powerful and she refuses to marry Paris because her thoughts cannot be taken from her love for Romeo. She makes a firm conclusion that if nothing is left to help her and Romeo she must resort to committing suicide, “If all else fail, myself have power to die”.
Before the story begins, it is made sure to the audience that Romeo and Juliet will die and that fate plays a large role in the death of the two lovers, “star-crossed lovers”. Shakespeare uses irony in “Romeo and Juliet” to show how fate is always there, following its sequence, “I dreamt my lady came and found me dead-“, and both Romeo and Juliet cannot imagine the consequences of true love to be death.
Because Juliet has become a lot more thoughtful and sensible, since she has experienced true love, many doubts and worries cross her mind before she takes the poison, given to her by Friar Laurence. She constructs her plans very well and makes sure that no other person, but Friar Laurence, knows about her false death, “I needs must act alone.”
By itemising all her fears, Juliet can now turn to her thoughts on Romeo, and with the true love between them, she visualises that she can be guided to do the appropriate thing. Once her determination to be united with Romeo appears again, she realises that love can give her force and make the poison work, “Love give me strength, and strength shall help afford”.
Although Friar Laurence did all he could to help Romeo and Juliet, fate was against them and Friar John could not send the letter, Friar Laurence had written, to Romeo, “Unhappy fortune! By my brotherhood, The letter was not nice”.
Fate causes Romeo and Juliet’s death and this particular point is stressed by the way Shakespeare only allows Juliet to wake once Romeo has drunken his illegal poison. Because Romeo is dead when Juliet wakes she sees no point in living and Juliet has the persistence to join Romeo in a second life, death, by killing herself, “O happy dagger./ This is thy sheath, There rust, and let me die”.
The stars were very important when Shakespeare was alive and this is why they affect Romeo and Juliet so much, “A greater power than we can contradict/ Hath thwarted our intents”. Fate out wits Romeo and Juliet because no defence can prevent it from taking its course, “Their course of love, tidings of her death”.
I think Shakespeare wanted to show that a feud as strong as the dispute between the Montagues and the Capulets, could only change with the death of a young loved one from each family, “heaven finds means to kill your joys with love”. The young suffered from the old’s mistakes, “death-marked love”, and at the end of the play, the only thing left for the two families to do, was forget the quarrel and bond, to help overcome the extreme suffering and remorse to come.
It is difficult to believe that Romeo thought of Rosaline as his only love before he had met Juliet, “Thou canst not teach me to forget”, and he believed that his love for Rosaline was so strong that he could not love any other person. In fact, Shakespeare only wants to show how Romeo is in love with the idea of being in love and Rosaline is just a substitute until Romeo finds Juliet. Rosaline is an average girl, but Romeo is looking forward to falling in love so much that he jumps at the first change to be devoted to someone. It is easy to see how the love between Romeo and Rosaline is unrequited because Romeo is so confused and uncomfortable, “O brawling love, O loving hate!”. Oxymorons emphasise how unreal this love is because Romeo’s emotions are so mixed and contradict themselves. His feelings are making him fell depressed, “Ay me, sad hours seem long”, “I have a soul of lead”, which shows that Romeo’s love for Rosaline is unreciprocal. He feels that he needs to be alone, “Shuts up his window, locks the daylight out”, which shows his immature youth as a teenager.
At the Capulet’s ball Romeo forgets Rosaline completely because she was so ordinary compared to his newly found real love, Juliet. This again presents how artificial the love between Romeo and Rosaline is is.
Paris has a love for Juliet like Romeo’s love for Rosaline and this is a courtly love, which explains how important and meaningful family traditions and arranged marriages were in that time. I think Paris wanted to marry Juliet for her wealth and beauty and Capulet knew Paris as a noble gentleman. This made it easier for Paris because it meant he had the father’s permission to marry Juliet. Paris was an innocent young man, only guilty for loving Juliet and he was very enthusiastic about marrying Juliet, “my lord, what say you to my suit?”, and he thinks it is the respectable thing to do. Paris wants to try to show his happiness to Juliet, “Happily met, my lady and my wife”, but he seems to be oblivious to the way Juliet tries to put Paris at a distance, “That may be, sir, when I may be a wife”. She sees that Paris is only being courteous, and she tries to put Tybalt off her by telling him that she is ugly, “The tears have got small victory by that,/ For it was bad enough before their spite”, but at the same time Juliet is very angry at Paris for getting in the way of her plans.
Paris is just an innocent man who thinks he is in love with the daughter of Capulet and the fate in the story is so strong that it affects Paris as well. It is unreasonable and excessive that Paris had to die trying to surmount the overpowering love between Romeo and Juliet. Paris did his duty to trying to save Juliet from Romeo, as he thought that Romeo had come for revenge and to vandalise the tomb where Tybalt and Juliet lay, “And here comes to do some villainous shame/ To the dead bodies”. Romeo tries to be rational with Paris at first, “tempt not a desperate man” and he does not want to have to harm Paris, but when he realises that there is no other way he can enter the tomb, he kills Paris. As a last request from Romeo, Paris asks Romeo to put him with Juliet to die, ”Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet”, and as a civil and honourable gentleman, Romeo does this as a small repayment.
The difference between Romeo’s love for Rosaline and Paris’ love for Juliet is that Romeo finds Rosaline easy to forget once he finds his true love, but Paris cannot seem to let go of his devotion to Juliet.
Another person with a different type of love for Juliet is the Nurse in the play. The Nurse dotes on Juliet and because of the death of her own daughter, she treats Juliet as an alternate daughter. The Nurse has adopted Juliet and gives her the motherly love she needs that has been denied by Lady Capulet. The length of the Nurse’s love for Juliet is obviously made evident because of the way she repeats her memories of Juliet. The Nurse loves to talk and Juliet is a very good excuse for telling long stories, ”’Tis since the earthquake now eleven years,/ And she was weaned – I never shall forget it –“, this speech of the Nurse’s was very long and to many very boring, but to the Nurse it was a vividly memorable importance in her life. The Nurse has a maternal love towards Juliet, she is very truthful to her and although in one part of the play she misunderstands Juliet’s unwavering love for Romeo, she gives advise to Juliet from the heart, ”I think it best you married with the County./ O, he’s a lovely gentleman”. Juliet looks up to the Nurse as an older, more knowledgeable adult and she finds it easy to talk to her about problems, as the Nurse has a parental quality. After the Capulet’s ball, where Romeo and Juliet first meet, the Nurse warns Juliet about Romeo, “His name is Romeo, and a Montague,/ The only son of your great enemy”, and this is to show that even from the warnings of a more superior dignitary, it is inevitable that what happens between Romeo and Juliet will end in death, because of the fate acting upon their dominant love. The Nurse views love in a very different aspect and Shakespeare makes it clear that she loves to talk about the sex and money involved in a relationship, “So shall you share all that he doth possess”, “you shall bear the burden soon at night”. The Nurse has known Juliet since she was very young and is excited at the idea of her getting married:
“Thou was the prettiest babe that I ever nursed.
And I might live to see thee married once,
I have my wish.”
The idea of Juliet finding her first love is quite astonishing to the Nurse and although she does not understand the strength of this true love, she agrees to help. The Nurse is first worried that Romeo may not be the devoted and reliable man that Juliet is expecting. In Act two, scene four, the Nurse manages to withstand Mercutio’s arrogant remarks, “a bawd!”, “ancient lady”, because she wants to keep her obligations, and find Romeo. Because of the concern and responsibility she feels for Juliet, before making any arrangements, the Nurse first makes it assured that Romeo is prepared to stay faithful to Juliet and that he will dutifully show his love towards her, “if ye should lead her into a fool’s paradise, as/ they say, it were a very gross kind of behaviour”. When Romeo answers the Nurse with a very positive attitude, she next makes sure that the arrangements for Juliet’s wedding will be perfect, “This afternoon sir? Well, she shall be there.” Although the Nurse is very happy for Juliet to get married, there are many ways in which she does not want to let go of her. She is not sure she wants Juliet to get involved with men too much, as she thinks of them as a burden, “Women grow by men”, and with this remark it is easy to see the good sense of humour that the Nurse displays.
The Nurse indicates how well she knows Juliet when she explains to Romeo how Juliet feels about him. She seems to express Juliet’s affections towards him very well, although she has only known about the relationship between them for several hours, “she hath the pettiest sententious of it, of you”.
The Nurse wants to be sure that Juliet can get all the pleasures out of being married and she assures that Romeo and Juliet, together, can embark on sexual indulgences, “I must another way/ To fetch a ladder by the which your love/ Must climb”, “Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days”. It is obvious that Juliet respects the Nurse, because she is so truthful and she is grateful for everything the Nurse does for her, “Honest Nurse”.
The murder of Tybalt brings tearful eyes to many of the people in Verona. The Nurse wants to be sure that Juliet realises what a terrible crime Romeo has committed, “Shame to Romeo”, but as soon as the Nurse starts to criticise Romeo, Juliet becomes very defensive, “My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain”, which again shows Juliet’s powerful love for Romeo. Although the Nurse is very angry with Romeo she does as she is asked and goes to find Romeo at Friar Laurence’s cell to bid him farewell from Juliet. When she finds Romeo weeping as Juliet was she becomes very unsympathetic because she has had enough of this pathetic love sickness, “Stand, and you be a man./For Juliet’s sake, for her sake, rise and stand!”. The Nurse sees Romeo’s youthful, immature side when he throws this tantrum by threatening to kill himself and the Nurse thinks that he is being very selfish and should think of other people (e.g. Juliet) and not just himself.
The Nurse is very defensive over Juliet when Juliet’s parents overreact to her refusal towards the marriage with Paris, “God in heaven bless her./ You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so”, and I think this is very defiant of the Nurse to stand up to Capulet for the purpose of Juliet. The Nurse wants to be sincere with Juliet and even though she knows that Juliet will not enjoy hearing the Nurse explain to her that it may be best to marry Paris, she thinks that the right thing to do is to obey her stern and demanding parents:
“I think you are happy in this second match,
For it excels your first, or, if it did not,
Your first is dead, or ‘twere as good he were
As living here and you no use of him.”
This shows that the Nurse does not understand true love, but she explains to Juliet that a marriage with Paris would be more practical and it would make everyone happier, than if they knew she was married to Romeo. Juliet has a respectful love for the Nurse and this is shown by the way she is deeply hurt, abandoned and shocked with dread when the Nurse betrays her by telling to abide by her parent’s rules, “Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!” and she turns to her last resort, Friar Laurence.
Friar Laurence is a very thoughtful, philosophical man and lives in a very simple way because he is a man of the church. The Friar is very interested in relating plants to people and he is knowledgeable about the curative qualities of plants. Like the Nurse, Friar Laurence is in the play to support Romeo and he has a similarly maternal love for Romeo. Romeo goes to the Friar to express his feelings of great joy from the newly found love of Juliet, but Friar Laurence does not believe that this is true love because of the way Romeo quickly skips between women, “So soon forsaken? Young men’s love then lies/ Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes”. Friar Laurence is optimistic by nature and sees Romeo and Juliet’s marriage as a good way to bring peace between the Montagues and the Capulets, to solve the feud, this is why he decides to help Romeo and Juliet get married:
“In one respect I’ll thy assistant be,
For this alliance may so happy prove
To turn your household’s rancour to pure love.”
The Friar agrees to help Romeo with the marriage only because he wants to do what he thinks is right for Romeo, but he gives Romeo many warnings to try to explain to him that their plans may not work out perfectly. The Friar hopes that God can help the wedding to turn out well, “So smile the heavens upon this holy act/ That after-hours with sorrow chide us not”.
Although the Friar tries to be supporting and understanding, he knows he must explain to Romeo that sulking to show his rage is not going to solve anything. Friar Laurence tells Romeo that the situation is a lot better than it could have been because the Prince saw through the pain from Tybalts murder and gave him a less harmful penalty than death:
“but the kind Prince,
Taking thy part, hath rushed aside the law,
And turned that black word “death” to banishment.”
This may have made Romeo more angry at the thought that Friar Laurence was being very misunderstanding, but it showed him the positive parts to this tragedy. When Romeo threatens to kill himself at the thought of being banished from Verona and locked away from Juliet, Friar Laurence reprimands him with great force, “And slay thy lady that in thy life lives,/ By doing damned hate upon thyself?”. He is very cross at Romeo for being so selfish and thinking of distressing everybody else by committing suicide. Friar Laurence knows how to deal with Romeo very well. He realises that the only way to make Romeo think properly and try to carefully work out plans of what to do, is to show him that his love, Juliet, is still alive and that if his love is strong enough they will be able to cope through this calamity.
Friar Laurence is very resistant in arranging the marriage between Paris and Juliet, because he knows of the strong love between Romeo and Juliet and he knows that the marriage will complicate things more, “On Thursday, sir? The time is very short”. He tries to put Paris off the idea, because if things are rushed, the consequences could be worse, “You say you do not know the lady’s mind”.
Friar realises that something must be done quickly before the wedding between Paris and Juliet takes place, because this will mean Juliet would be married twice and would be an appalling sin to commit. Juliet, like Romeo, threatens to kill herself with the thought of marrying Paris, “with this knife I’ll help it presently”, which shows her immature youth. The Friar understands her love for Romeo because of his great understanding of Romeo and shows her that there is one way he could help, but it should only be done in desperation and if there is nothing else left to do:
“A thing like death to chide away this shame,
That cop’st with death himself to ‘scape from it;
And, if thou darest, I’ll give thee remedy.”
He explains that if she is prepared to die for Romeo, then he could provide her with a remedy that will allow her to deceive people into thinking she is dead. The Friar, is going against the church for Romeo and Juliet and this shows his strong parental love. He is very false in front of the Capulets so that they will not know of the secretive plans the Friar made with Juliet, “Come, is the bride ready to go to church?”.
The Friar is greatly upset when he finds out that the letter he wrote to Romeo could not be sent, but he stays controlled and after he has thought things through he carefully decides on what to do next to help Romeo and Juliet, “must I to the monument alone”. Friar is shocked and deeply hurt at the sight of Romeo dead, “Romeo! O, pale!”, but considerately, his immediate next worry is Juliet. Friar Laurence feels very guilty and he is frightened of the authorities finding him in the tomb with two dead bodies, “Come, come away”. He tries to take Juliet with him, but as soon as he identifies that the strength of Juliet’s love will not allow her to be taken away from Romeo’s side, “Go, get thee hence, for I will not away”, he leaves.
The Friar’s truthfulness is shown in the last scene as he explains how this terrible tragedy occurred and how he blames himself for much of it, “Miscarried by my fault, let my old life/ Be sacrificed”. This also shows that he was prepared to die for the unbridled things he did for Romeo and Juliet.
Juliet’s parents are shown to be very strict in “Romeo and Juliet”, “Nurse, where’s my daughter? Call her forth to me”, and they show a very superior mannerism. The parent, child bond between Juliet and her parents is not very strong and in many ways Capulet, her father, expects Juliet to obey all of his commands, “I think she will be ruled/ In all respects by me”.
Juliet’s mother tries to do what she can for her, she wants her to think highly of her father and she thinks that arranging a marriage for her with Paris is a good idea, “Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child,/ One who put thee from thy heaviness”, “Marry, my child”.
Because of all Juliet’s emotions building up, Juliet is livid at the concept of having another marriage in the way of her plans, “He shall not make me a joyful bride!”. Lady Capulet is surprised at this unexpected, disobedient girl her daughter has turned into and turns to Capulet to help explain that the wedding is inevitable. Capulet only loves his daughter as a perfectly well brought up, young girl and I can see that he cares about her when he tells Paris to slow his plans down and to take his time because she is too young, “woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart:/ My will to her consent is but a part”. We can see in this quote that Capulet is thinking about Juliet by the way he allows it to be her choice and he will only allow the marriage to come to pass if she agrees. He treats her as a very young girl and he finds it difficult to let go of that idea, and to get used to the idea of her turning into a beautiful woman.
When Capulet hears Juliet answering back to him with a negative tone, his mood changes completely, “Is she not proud? Doth she not count her blest”, and he becomes very angry with her disagreement to the marriage. Capulet starts to throw abuse at Juliet, “you green-sickness carrion! Out, you baggage!/ You tallow face!”, to try to force her to marry Paris. He threatens to make her marry, “I will drag thee on a hurdle thither”, or she will have to leave the Capulet’s house immediately, but the determination of Juliet to refuse this offer and stay faithful to Romeo is incredible.
Before Juliet uses Friar Laurence’s plans to have a fake death, she makes sure she leaves her father on a good note and tells him that she has changed her mind and is happy to marry Paris, “Henceforward I am ever ruled by you”. Capulet is delighted with Juliets changed approach to the marriage and his mood changes completely, “My heart is wonderous light,/ Since this same wayward girl is so reclaimed”. This quote shows how Capulet prefers his daughter not to change in any way and to stay young, innocent and dutiful.
Although Juliet’s parents do not show much care or love towards her, at her death, but only at her death, they show parental love towards Juliet and are devastated because their only child has suddenly died, “O me, O me! My child, my only life!”.
Shakespeare allowed many different types of love to be viewed and understood in this play, and I have tried to explain how he has done this with the most important roles of love. The Prince also has a great love for his community and in many ways there is the love between Romeo and his close friends, such as Balthasar, Mercutio and Benvolio, but the most overpowering love in the play is the true love between Romeo and Juliet.
The effect of the love between Romeo and Juliet on the audience is very strong, because of the way Shakespeare keeps the story on edge at all times and there are always many things to think about, such as fate. The deaths of Romeo, Juliet and Paris were caused by the powerful true love between Romeo and Juliet just as much as they were caused by the hate between the Montagues and the Capulets, because these two themes are equal. Romeo and Juliet’s death had no influence on solving the feud between the Montagues and the Capulets until they were dead. The hate between the two families was so intense that only a tragedy as sad as this would give sadness and grief enough endowment to allow the two families to bond.
