Shakespeare uses a lot of beautiful images at the beginning of this scene ‘It was the nightingale, and not the lark that pierced the hollow of thine ear; nightly she sings on yonder pomegranate tree.’ He employs the lark and the nightingale to signify the difference between night and day – where the lark is the ‘herald of the morn’ and the nightingale, the bird of the night. Juliet and Romeo are arguing about whether it is night or day and whether or not Romeo should go. The lark symbolises lovers parting and is the foe to lovers as it tells you when the morning has arrived. Also dawn is supposed to represent a new start, but here it is pulling the lovers apart. There is also a link between love and death – as night is associated with darkness and death, but it is also the one thing that keeps the lovers together. When Romeo says ‘Look, love, what envious streaks do lace the severing clouds’ severing underlines that the lovers are being torn apart. Another interpretation of this vision could be that it is foreshadowing verbal violence later in this scene.
When the nurse arrives, the audience might think that it is Lady Capulet. The Nurse tells Juliet that Lady Capulet is coming, thus the tension rises as Romeo doesn’t have long to get out so we are worried he is going to be caught. The nurse could be thought of as Romeo and Juliet’s protector as she is the only one who knows about them getting married (apart from Friar Laurence). Luhrmann’s interpretation is good as the nurse comes rushing in and we’re not sure who it is at first.
The fact that Shakespeare in the stage direction writes that Romeo ‘descends’, is quite significant as it foreshadows the end of the play – when everything goes downhill. It also represents a movement from happiness to sadness. In addition, the way Juliet repeats ‘o’ creates a sense of foreboding and creates a very sombre mood.
When Lady Capulet appears, it is as though the enemy of the lovers has arrived.
Shakespeare’s dramatic technique of making Juliet talk equivocally to her mother is very powerful and clever as we unlike Lady Capulet fully understand that she is talking about the fact she is missing Romeo and that she isn’t talking about her woe for Tybalt. An example of this play on words is when Juliet says ‘I never shall be satisfied with Romeo until I behold him – dead – is my poor heart’. Shakespeare adds the dashes to give the line a double meaning. Lady Capulet thinks Juliet is saying that she won’t be satisfied until Romeo is dead but Juliet is actually saying that she won’t be satisfied until she sees Romeo again and that her heart is dead, thus raising further sympathy from the audience.
When Lady Capulet uses words such as ‘joy’ and ‘joyful’ it is ironic as Juliet doesn’t think that the proposed marriage is joyful at all. Juliet repeats the same words as Lady Capulet as she is in shock ‘He shall not make me there a joyful bride.’ This makes it even more ironic as she uses joyful as well.
The fact that Juliet defies the proposal is not really a shock to the audience but increases tension as they wonder what Juliet’s father will say. The audience is worried for Juliet’s sake as in this patriarchal society, Juliet is seen as a sort of possession or a trophy as women/girls were supposed to have unquestioning obedience in Elizabethan times. An audience of this time would have been quite shocked at Juliet’s defiant response to this proposal. ‘He shall not make me there a joyful bride.’
The entrance of Capulet raises the tension up another notch as the audience then speculates on what his response will be to Juliet’s defiance. The storm image that Shakespeare gives Capulet (‘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’) is very significant, as firstly it foreshadows that he is going to be like a storm in a few minutes and also it shows him being sympathetic because he thinks that Juliet is crying over the loss of Tybalt so consequently the tension recedes a bit before the big thunder clash in a few minutes.
Capulet’s rhetorical questions and insults are very strong, and to an audience they are disturbing. He says that she is just a rotten piece of meat and nothing better ‘you green sickness carrion, out you baggage’. Shakespeare also creates this image of hierarchy by the fact that Juliet kneels and says ‘Good father I beseech you on my knees’. This positioning on stage also creates the image that she is small and helpless. Another horrible thing Capulet says is ‘My fingers itch’ which shows that he wants to hit Juliet. The Luhrmann interpretation of the play takes this line quite literally as Capulet manhandles Juliet and hits Lady Capulet and also has a go at the Nurse. I think the Luhrmann film version has a lot of effective imagery in this scene; for example it shows the bedroom as being light and the corridor as being dark as Capulet gets angry in the dark corridor, Luhrmann also uses a film noir image of the banisters as bars trapping Juliet. This shows that she is trapped because if she doesn’t do what her father says she will get thrown out of the Capulet household.
The Nurse is the only person who stands up for Juliet (‘God in heaven bless her you are to blame, my lord, to rate her so’) but she puts herself in a very precarious position as she could very easily lose her job but ironically we know that she won’t have any effect on the situation as she has no status.
Capulet’s final words are harsh and Shakespeare has deliberately used monosyllables to put this across ‘and you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend; and you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets.’ He wants her to suffer if she doesn’t obey him and Capulet thinks that she should be grateful to him. He also uses lots of personal pronouns and commands which again show that she is being treated as a possession. I think the audience would be shocked at how harshly he’s treating his only daughter. Lady Capulet’s last words ‘Do as thou wilt for I have done with thee’ are very powerful and can be interpreted in more than one way. The line can be read as indicating that she is scared of Capulet and won’t do anything to help her daughter because of her fear. On the other had she could be trying to scare her daughter into going through with the marriage as she fears for her daughter and doesn’t want Capulet to do anything bad to Juliet.
After Lady Capulet leaves and there is just Juliet and the Nurse left the audience think that there may still be a little hope and that the Nurse will help her so when Shakespeare adds in a dramatic twist, the Nurse suggests that Juliet should marry Paris (‘I think it best you marry with the County’) the audience are very surprised. The Nurse is making a pragmatic decision and trying to do what is best. After this Juliet says ‘Amen’ which shows that she thinks it is the end.
Juliet sarcastically then says ‘you have comforted me much’ and I think that the Nurse could be aware of Juliet’s sarcasm but doesn’t show it to try to make Juliet feel better.
In the Luhrmann interpretation, the Nurse is shown still in the room and she doesn’t appear to understand Juliet’s sarcasm. This works but I think that the original version is better as it creates a good image of Juliet on the stage alone and could also, as the nurse hurries out of the room, show that the Nurse understands Juliet’s sarcasm but doesn’t want Juliet to know it.
When Juliet is left on the stage alone it is a very powerful image as it shows that she really is alone and that it is the end. Her final words, if all else fail, I myself have power to die, are very disturbing and dramatic as they foreshadow what is going to happen at the end of the play. Shakespeare then creates a lot of tension and suspense as the audience are eager to know what happens next.
I think that this scene is very powerful, dramatic and tense as it captivates the audience and has twists and turns. My favourite moment is when Capulet comes in as there is a lot of tension and it really grips the audience at that point. This scene is also very sad as, in retrospect, it is the last time we see Romeo and Juliet together alive which is very upsetting. It is also effective how Shakespeare turns the scene around from love at the beginning moving towards hate at the end which shows that love and hate are both later connected.
