In lines 64 to 105, Juliet and Lady Capulet discuss her proposed marriage to Paris and it is in these line that Shakespeare makes his mastery of language clear, whilst building up the tension. In this scene, the most important feature of Juliet’s speech is her ambiguity. For example, when she and her mother are talking about her outpouring of grief, Juliet agrees with her mother that it is Romeo who is making her mournful (and her mother thinks she is talking about Tybalt’s death) and she states in lines 93 to 95, “Indeed I shall never be satisfied/ With Romeo, till I behold him – dead – / Is my poor heart, so for a kinsman vexed.” This use of the word ‘dead’ in the middle of the sentence can become either the start or end of the two sentences. In one context, the one Lady Capulet hears, she is saying she will not be happy until Romeo is dead. In the second context, the one the audience would hear she is saying her heart will be dead and she will be unsatisfied until she holds Romeo. This ambiguity builds up the tension amongst the characters, and the audience is allowed to think that Juliet may slip up at any moment and give her actions away.
When Capulet enters in line 126, it shows he is thinking the same as his wife, which is that Juliet is crying for her cousin, not Romeo, as the audience knows. This creates even more dramatic irony. In this part of the scene, line 126 to 139, Capulet is using an extended metaphor. He firstly compares the drizzle of a real sunset, “When the sun sets, the earth doth drizzle dew,” with the heavy downpour of Juliet’s tears for the metaphorical sunset that is the death of his nephew, “But for the sunset of my brother’s son / It rains downright …evermore showering? In one little body.” He then develops this into Juliet’s eyes being the sea, her body the ‘bark’, which is the ship, and her sighs being the wind. “For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea, / Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is, / Sailing in this salt flood; the winds thy sighs. Capulet’s entrance shows him as ignorant in thinking that his daughter would be happy to marry a stranger, as Paris is and this builds up the tension because the audience knows that Juliet is already married and will not be able to marry Paris and this will aggravate Capulet’s feelings further. Lady Capulet’s answer to her husband’s question at the end of his part on line 139 is to say, “I would the fool were married to her grave.” This is another example of unknowingly making predictions on the part of a character leading to dramatic irony.
The dramatic change in mood occurring between lines 141 and 196 show the full force of Capulet’s rage unleashed on the defiant Juliet, resulting in her position becoming further isolated. These lines signify a turning point in the scene because of the large shift in how Juliet is feeling compared with the beginning of the scene. This deepening state of despair that Juliet is falling into outlines how desperate she is becoming and this will start a chain of reactions which will eventually kill both her and Romeo. This tension provokes sympathy from the audience who can empathise with her. Her father however cannot empathise because he does not have all the information. This inability to comprehend his daughter’s position is expressed by Capulet when he says, “How, how, how, how.” This repetition drives home the point of Capulet’s inability to understand his daughter’s position. Shakespeare uses the image of Juliet for her father’s pity to show the patriarchal he has being her father as opposed to her mother, who does not exercise this type of control to such an extent. It shows the role of women in that time as taking a role behind their husband and allowing him to make the decisions. We can see this dominance over Juliet when he talks about her as if she is a thoroughbred horse, which he can sell at will, “fettle your fine joints,” Meaning prepare yourself for marriage. It also shows the parental control her parents can exercise over her. This part is probably among the most dramatic part of the scene and probably the play because of the fast moving changes in Juliet’s position in her father’s mind. This change is indicated by Capulet’s insults firstly comparing Paris’ merits as a husband to her immature stubbornness. He then proceeds to mock these objects sarcastically, “I cannot love… I am too young.” The audience knows that she can love, and she is obviously not too young to marry since Romeo is her husband, and this creates more tension and dramatic irony, when we know that Capulet’s sarcastic comments have ground, and Juliet knows this as well. She can lose this argument and she and the audience knows it and this, the audience can guess will lead to her taking desperate measures, such as her ominous image of her prophecy in line 200 to 201, building the tension.
Lady Capulet’s rejection of her daughter in lines 197 to 204 shows what little power women, even of the status of Lady Capulet, had in Shakespeare day. In line 198 Juliet pleads, “O sweet my mother, cast me not away!” and her mother’s response leaves her even more isolated than before. She has lost favour with her father and her mother in the space of a few minutes. This casting away of Juliet is significant because it shows why she cannot simply leave her family and leave for Mantua to meet with Romeo because she has so little power as was the same for all women of that time. This the audience of Shakespeare’s day would have known this and they would then see the even more precarious situation she is in, creating more tension and impact of the scene.
The disappointment and unhappiness Juliet must now be feeling at this point in the scene drives her to seek console in her nurse. The nurse however, urges her to marry Paris. Juliet sends the nurse away after what Juliet sees as her betrayal, and vows never to trust her again. “Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!” Juliet is now completely isolated which will make her to take risks, building the tension further.
Juliet mood at the end of the scene is one of a noose tightening and a feeling of increasing entrapment by her compoundly complicated life. Her parents are threatening her with being cast out of their family, into a world where she has no rights and can go nowhere else. Not only this but her religion is becoming an increasingly complicated factor in her desperately complicated problems. In lines 205 to 208 she recognises that only with Romeo’s death can se sincerely take a Christian vow to marry Paris. She has been deserted by everyone she could trust, most shockingly by her nurse. In the final line of the scene Juliet says, “If all else fail, myself have the power to die.” This shows how far she is prepared to go to get out of marrying Paris and that she will kill herself if the worst comes to the worst. This prediction, the audience knows, will come true, resulting in dramatic irony.
Shakespeare explores the influence of fate and chance on the two lovers and it is this element of chance that lets the audience know that they did not necessarily have to die, as opposed to in Shakespeare’s four major tragedies of ‘Hamlet’, ‘King Lear’, ‘Macbeth’, and ‘Othello’. Whilst still being a tragedy it does not follow the classical pattern of the other four where a person, usually of high social status, is doomed to disaster and death because of one fatal weakness of character. They have the high social status and there love could be considered their weakness but Shakespeare’s overcastting of chance onto this build the tension because the audience knows that the had a chance and because the know they die they can see the points where they could have survived the hypocrisy of their parents and time as the enemy to their love.
In conclusion, this pivotal scene is important to the entire play because it explores the theme of passion and the dangers of irrational, and intense emotions and actions of the two lovers and the consequences that they eventually bring to them are prophesied many times in this scene creating a dramatic irony. Capulet’s loss of control in the scene is a reminder of the ignorance and hypocrisy that power and wealth brings to men. It casts Juliet in the light of a person who is a victim to outside influences and namely her father, who cannot comprehend her position because they do not know what she know. The one person in the play who does know most of what is going on is the nurse and her betrayal is the most devastating for Juliet. The audience knows the full story and also what will happen to them at the end of the play, so they can empathise with her and also see the dramatic irony in the prophesies and predictions that surround the scene building the tension of the final impact when Juliet resolves to take her own life if the Friar cannot present a resolution to her problems and this builds the tension for the next scene and also the end.