Romeo seems to change Juliet a great deal as first she was a good obedient Christian girl, “I am here. What is your will?”, but after falling in love with Romeo she starts challenging her parents and being disobedient and disagreeing with them. When Lady Capulet asks her to marry the Count Paris, even though she is not very interested, she agrees to marry him and meet him at the ball. “I’ll look to like, if looking liking move.”
After meeting Romeo Juliet cannot really talk to her parents anymore as she is going against them and what they believe in. Also she told them she would marry the Count Paris but she is not allowed as it would be against the law to marry Paris when she is already married to Romeo.
Juliet’s mother, Lady Capulet, does not really pay attention to her and only seems to come to Juliet when she wants her to get married to the Count Paris. Lady Capulet also does not truly know Juliet properly and this must hurt Juliet as her Nurse knows her better and is more like her mother than Lady Capulet. Lady Capulet also knows this as when the Nurse is telling her all about Juliet she says, “[e]nough of this, I prithee hold thy peace” and it makes me think that she regrets it and feels guilty about it. I also think that Juliet must be quite hurt by this, as she cannot really talk to her mother as a daughter. If Juliet talked to her parents more and was closer to them then they could have explained the idea of love and marriage, which would have prepared her for the man whom she would marry. However Lady Capulet does suggest a particular view of these two things. They would also be able to advise her and talked it over with her and giving her choices.
When Tybalt is killed, Romeo is banished and Juliet becomes isolated again as even her Nurse turns against her whom Juliet normally turns to for guidance and advice. Juliet’s Nurse starts saying that Romeo is no good as well, “[s]hame come to Romeo” and that Juliet might as well just marry the Count Paris as Romeo has been banished to Mantua. She also keeps a reminder not to tell the Nurse anything again because she does not trust her anymore, “[t]hou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.”
After the Nurse has left Juliet too, Juliet has no one else left to turn to with the exception of Friar Lawrence. If the Nurse did not go against “Juliet and her Romeo” then she could have advised her on what to do and helped Juliet through her terrible ordeal and be the ‘go-between’ between Juliet and her parents, Capulet and Lady Capulet.
When Juliet visits Friar Lawrence she tells him everything and wants him to help her, “give me some present counsel,” as he is the only person left in Verona who can help her. Friar Lawrence unwillingly gives Juliet a potion that will make her look like she is dead. However, at one point Juliet even doubts the Friar “What if it be a poison which the friar subtly hath ministered to have me dead.” This shows how alone she must feel as she thinks she cannot even trust a religious man.
Juliet is willing to give up her life just to avoid remarriage and get out of the complex situation that she is in because of her loneliness. “I long to die.”
Something that symbolises Juliet’s isolation is when she is in her family tomb by herself surrounded by the corpses of her ancestors and her relatives, “all my buried ancestors are packed”. She is the only living person in there until the Count Paris and Romeo arrive.
All of Juliet’s family also mainly concentrate on feuding with the Montagues, which is why Tybalt is furious when he sees Romeo with Juliet and starts complaining to his uncle when Romeo comes to the ball, “[w]hen such a villain is a guest.” This shows the amount of hatred involved between the Capulets and the Montagues and Juliet cannot tell her parents at all. As a result of this, Romeo and Juliet cannot profess their love openly, fate intervenes and causes Romeo to kill himself, believing Juliet is dead. This makes Juliet feel alone again as she ‘depended’ on Romeo and when she discovers the death of her husband, she kills herself, wanting to be with her lover through eternity.
In my opinion, after reading Romeo and Juliet I think that Juliet is one of the most important characters throughout the play, leading it to end in devastation and the reunion of two feuding families with a loss “of kinsmen.” It also seems that Romeo’s and Juliet’s ‘sacrifice’ is what brings the feuding to a stop. It is possibly her isolation from everyone which drives her to Romeo and causes her to fall in love at first sight with him at the ball not knowing him as her family’s greatest enemy. The plot seems to thicken as everyone leaves Juliet until she has no one but Romeo and so when he dies, leads her to take her own life, causing me to believe that she died as a result of her loneliness.
Shran Kaur Plaha
11AK
Ms. Varndell
