Juliet imagines she sees Romeo dead in the bottom of a tomb, of course as the audience, we know, because of the prologue that Romeo does die and Juliet does see him dead in the Capulet’s vault where Tybalt lies. This is an example of dramatic irony.
Lady Capulet enters, and discovers Juliet crying. Juliet says, “Feeling so the loss, I cannot choose but ever weep the friend”. This has a double meaning – Juliet deliberately says these words to mean two different things; firstly not to let her mother know that she mourns for Romeo and secondly so that her mother thinks she is weeping for Tybalt. Her mother is sympathetic towards her for this reason. This fact builds up excitement in the audience because they are one step ahead of Lady Capulet.
..Then the mood in the audience changes again very suddenly when Lady Capulet says “the villain lives which slaughtered him” (When L. Capulet says ‘…him’, she means Tybalt). The audience turns angry because they are on Romeo’s side and to be called a villain was a big insult in Elizabethan times. Lady Capulet insults Romeo many times by saying things like “traitor”, “murderer”, and “banished runagate”. The audiences hate for Lady Capulet increases to full potency. She even threatens to poison him.
Now we come back to Juliet speaking; she says, “O how my heart abhors to hear him named and cannot come to him”. This has a double meaning - Juliet uses this language on purpose to mislead her mother from the meaning that she intended, she only meant for herself to understand the correct meaning. To Juliet this would mean that she hates to hear Romeo named without being able to get her hands on him (because they were lovers). And although to Juliet the meaning is clear, Lady Capulet interprets it incorrectly, but it was the way Juliet intended.
Juliet is told very abruptly and out of the blue that she has been arranged to marry Paris next Thursday morning. She refuses to marry him because she is married to Romeo, as we the audience know, but Lord & Lady Capulet do not. Juliet rebells by saying the following: “Now by Saint Peter’s church and Peter too, He shall not make me there a joyful bride”. This is the first instance of Juliet rebelling in the entire play. This is not typical of a young Veronan heiress, nor of a girl in Elizabethan times, but the audience are not shocked as you might think they would be with this sort of behaviour, as they know the background information (that she is already married to Romeo and if she were to marry while her husband were still alive she would surely be sent to hell when she dies) and Lord and Lady Capulet do not. As Lord and Lady Capulet do not know this, they respond extremely aggressively and curse Juliet with all sorts of terrible things. They responded like this because it was considered a major honour to have an arranged marriage in those days, and Lord Capulet had gone to a lot of trouble to find such a good man, in his eyes – “…that we have wrought such as worthy gentleman to be her bride”. Lord Capulet says he “will drag thee on a hurdle thither” if Juliet will not go. He insults her in alsorts of ways by saying “Out you green-sickness carrion! out you baggage! You tallow face!”. By this we see Lord Capulets character change dramatically, he is no longer the calm, short tempered person we used to know, but in fact quite the opposite. The mood would change in the audience again and they would with extreme hate towards him, because he has been so unkind to the main character, Juliet.
At the same time as feeling hate towards Lord Capulet the audience would feel exceptionally sorry for Juliet because she is becoming evermore isolated. Her family have by now said that if you will not marry Paris you will no longer live under this roof. So she has to move out! Where will she go? Who will she live with? These are all questions the audience would be asking themselves around this time. This builds up the amount of tension in the audience and also, sadly, increases the excitement. This would be the case all the people who go to watch Shakespeare’s plays would want action. Nower days you would think that people would get more emotionally attached to the isolated character, in this instance Juliet. (Not that they didn’t at all in those days.)
Juliet’s mother says to her “Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee”. Think how sad Juliet must feel when everyone in her life is abandoning her.
The situation becomes even more discomforting when she turns to the nurse for some reassurance. The nurse betrays her big time. Juliet expects sympathy from the nurse but what she actually gets told is “Romeo is a dishclout in comparison” to Paris. This is not at all what she expects to hear and Juliet says “Speaks’t thou from thy heart”, the Nurse says “And from my soul too, else beshrew them both” – “Amen” Juliet exclaims.
She calls the nurse an “Ancient damnation” which means damned old woman.
Juliet’s only last hope is that the Friar can help her. She says “I’ll to the Friar to know his remedy; If all else fail, myself have power to die.”.
To conclude Juliet is left on stage all alone, she is totally isolated both emotionally and physically. The beginning of this scene happens to be Juliets last meeting with Romeo until she sees him dead in the Capulet vault. Shakespeare uses Juliet for the one to be abandoned because she is tender and will grip the audience’s attention when isolated. He created such a real experience that no-one could help themselves being dragged into the story almost instantly.
