How Does Shakespeare Provoke Sympathy for Juliet in Act 3 Scene 5?

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How Does Shakespeare Provoke Sympathy for Juliet in Act 3 Scene 5?

 Throughout the play and this scene there is a huge feeling of pity and sympathy created for Juliet by Shakespeare, she is in a very difficult and almost hopeless situation, double marriage being not only illegal but also a mortal sin in the catholic religion- which the Capulets were. He uses the theme of fate to create this. You can feel that throughout the play it feels like there is some hand controlling what is happening, out of the control of the young lovers or either of the families. It seems that through a trail of coincidences, the death of the teenagers are almost written in the stars from the start, as in the prologue it refers to them as “A pair of star-crossed lovers”. The idea of fate and destiny were popular in Elizabethan times, with fate often represented as a woman blindfolded, spinning a wheel.

 The scene opens with Juliet and Romeo in bed together, having consummated their marriage, and even in a time where she should be completely happy there is an ominous feeling that it is too good to last as they are separated by day again (a theme running throughout the play). However despite this the couple seem truly happy in each other’s company, which provokes sympathy as the audience know full well from the prologue (where it says “…their death-marked love” suggesting that from the second they met, their love-at-first-sight was destined to be their demise) that the lovers will not be together forever and it will not have a happy ending. This is outlined by when Juliet exclaims Romeo looks like “one dead in the bottom of a tomb” when he has climbed down from her balcony. This dramatic irony outlines the pity felt for Juliet, as the audience know that she is almost predicting the future and it is almost as though she herself knows what is to come. He shows the two are happy by using the aubade form. This is a piece of poetry about lovers separating at dawn- “Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day;” showing the lovers don’t want to be separated. They use humour and charm to show how blissful they are- “It was the nightingale, not the lark” here Juliet tries to convince Romeo it it still night so he doesn’t have to leave her.

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 The light and dark theme starts this scene with the above quote, again where Juliet says “Yon light is not daylight… it is some meteor that the sun exhaled”, as she is desperate for him to stay as she doesn’t know, after today, when she will next see him. And this is not the only time this has been used, in act  scene  “…she hang upon the cheek of night Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear” this similie outlines the contrast between the two which shows she is beautiful and bright in Romeo’s eyes. In act 5 ...

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