At the beginning of the play love is portrayed as a depressing emotion. It reveals to us just how deeply love is affecting Romeo. His depression is brought on buy his unrequited love for Rosaline. The way Romeo acts shows us that he is love sick. The language Shakespeare uses conveys a gloomy picture of love. Romeo is crying and sighing ‘with tears augmenting the fresh mornings dew adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs.’ He also stays in the dark and as soon as daylight begins to show he closes his curtains so he can go away to the darkness ‘away from light steals home my heavy son’ showing us the audience that he is so unhappy that he wants the setting to reflect his mood. This behaviour is typical for a person who is in love for the first time leading them to not know how to deal with their emotions. Shakespeare is saying that love turns people’s worlds upside down and causes Romeo to behave in a strange way and also that it controls our behaviour, leading us to behave in an unsocial fashion.
Romeo reveals to the audience why he is behaving so oddly. Shakespeare conveys the way Romeo feels by using oxymorons. “Why then, O brawling love, O Loving hate, O anything of nothing first create!..” he uses this device to show us just how confused Romeo is and that this is what love does to its victims, this shows us that Romeo is truly in love because why else would he get so confused. Shakespeare is trying to show us that Romeo is young and confused and that he only thinks he knows what love is because he only has a mild idea of it. This tells us that Romeo is a spontaneous person and that he is also naïve and easily deceived. Shakespeare also uses oxymorons because it was fashionable to use them in love poetry in those times and Shakespeare knew that he was pleasing the audience.
At the time that Shakespeare was writing, it was a very male dominant period. Men were considered to be leaders and women to be their inferiors. People thought that women needed someone to look after them. If she was married, her husband was expected to look after her. If she was single, then her father, brother or another male relative was expected to take care of them; or they would be married of to someone else; just like Juliet was being forced into an arranged marriage by her father to Paris.
Regardless of the fact that Juliet also loves Romeo, she is going to have to marry Paris because she has been forced into an arranged marriage. Lady Capulet is giving Juliet reasons why she should marry Paris but Juliet is not saying much in response because she knows that she does not love Paris nor want to marry hi m. lady Capulet tells Juliet ‘the valiant Paris seeks your love’ she is making Paris seem so much better than he is because at the end of the day she had no choice but to marry him. This shows us that women in the Elizabethan era had no choice whatsoever over whom they loved, and that it was down to their father to arrange a suitable husband for them. Shakespeare has used this play to reflect on the society of the time and to show us that love is often forced and most commonly controlled by man. Women where seen to be the weaker sex; physically, mentally and emotionally, so this is why men where in control in those times. The nurse is also trying to help boost Paris’ status by calling him ‘a man of wax’ Shakespeare has used this metaphor to show us that Paris’ is perfect and flawless just like wax.
Men and women were both married young in the Elizabethan times; Men at around the age of fourteen, and women usually at the age of twelve. Juliet was about this age and she was already being married off.
Juliet is being forced to marry Paris by her parents, against all of her wishes; and despite the fact that she is already married to Romeo. This is called dramatic irony, another great literary device Shakespeare has used to heighten the tension in Romeo and Juliet’s relationship. The audience knows that they are married but no
other characters do. This suggests to me that Romeo and Juliet’s love is legit because they know what they are doing is dangerous but they still go ahead and marry each other. Shakespeare is showing us that love is so powerful that nothing else can affect its victims.
When Romeo and his friends ‘gatecrash’ the Capulet’s party they talk about love and we know that he is in a melancholy mood because he is still thinking about Rosaline. In this section Shakespeare has made love out to be delicate and not steady because Romeo is still depressed about his unrequited love for Rosaline but then as soon as he sees Juliet he is in love all over again, this tells us that Romeo is indecisive because he originally only came to the party to see Rosaline.
We know that young men are undeveloped in their mind and do not fully understand the meaning of love or what it is like to be in love. They tend to have an immature attitude towards it like when Mercutio says ‘if love be rough with you, be rough with love’ he is saying that he thinks that he can control love just because of their masculinity but this is just men being shallow and they are mistaken because Romeo is a victim of love.
When Romeo sees Juliet for the first time he claims to be in love with her, is it that it is love at first sight or that he is easily tainted. It makes the audience wonder if he is being sincere and speaking from his heart, or If he instead is just trying to seduce Juliet and flatter her because of her beauty. Shakespeare used religious metaphors to express how deep Romeo’s love is for Juliet. ‘my lips, two blushing pilgrims’ here Shakespeare refers to Romeo’s lips as pilgrims and pilgrims are people who make religious journeys so Shakespeare is saying that Romeo’s lips are on a journey to kiss Juliet’s. The audience know that the feelings are mutual between Romeo and Juliet, because she also talks about pilgrims ‘Ay pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer’. Romeo and Juliet must really be in love because they are referring to religion and love is very important in religion. This is a coincidence because the setting of the play is in Verona which is in Italy; Italy being a very religious place because that is where the pope goes and also where a lot of pilgrims travel. All of this religious language that is used makes the audience think that Romeo and Juliet’s love is sincere.
Shakespeare also uses other religious metaphors such as ‘o speak again bright angel’ this is what Romeo says to Juliet he is saying that she is a angel, instantly making the audience know that she is pure and beautiful and make us think all good about her.
The meeting of the two lovers is sensational. Shakespeare conveys their opening words to each other in the form of a sonnet which they share and create together. This sonnet has a beauty that captures the awkwardness and irresistibility of the moment of their meeting. In Shakespeare times sonnets where very popular, so when the audience heard a sonnet they would know that the main theme was love. The language in the sonnet was influenced by the Italian poet Petrarch, whose writing is still used to this day.
In the famous ‘balcony scene’ it is said to be the most romantic part of the play. Romeo and Juliet confess there love to each other and agree to get married. In the previous scene Juliet realises that she has fallen in love with her sworn enemy; ‘my only love sprung from my only hate… that I must love a loathed enemy’
Shakespeare uses light and dark imagery in this scene to show the blooming of Romeo and Juliet’s romance. As Romeo stands in the shadows, he looks up at the balcony and compares Juliet to the sun. He then asks ‘the sun to rise and kill the envious moon’. Romeo had always compared Rosaline to the moon, and now, his love for Juliet has outshone the moon; so now Romeo steps from the moonlit darkness into the light from Juliet’s balcony, he has left behind his melodramatic woes and moved toward a more genuine, mature understanding of love.
Romeo stands hidden in the shadows under the balcony until Juliet appears with the light from the window beaming on her ‘what light through yonder window breaks’ so here Juliet is described as a source of light ‘Juliet is the sun’
Shakespeare portrays Romeos love for Juliet by the language he uses to describe her. He describes her eyes metaphorically saying that they are stars, ‘two of the fairest stars in all the heavens’ by saying that her eyes could replace the most beautiful stars in the heavens shows us just how deeply Romeo feels for Juliet. Even after saying this Romeo continues complimenting her by saying that even if the stars took the place of her eyes her cheeks brightness would shame it. Romeo expresses a desire to touch Juliet through words ‘o that I where a glove upon that hand that I may touch that cheek.’ He wants to be the glove on her hand so he wants to connect with her that much.
Juliet speaks thinking that she is by her self “o Romeo Romeo wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny their father and refuse thy name and if thou will not be but sworn my love, and ill no longer be a Capulet.’ This is a dramatic speech which is very powerful; this shows that Juliet is really in love with Romeo because she is saying that his name is only her enemy and he would still be Romeo even without the Montague name.
Juliet is using the imperatives ‘deny’ and ‘refuse’; the impact of using these words is to show that she is commanding Romeo to do so.
Juliet comes alive in this scene because she is in love and Shakespeare is showing us that this is what love does to you.
She asks that he ‘be sworn, my love and ill no longer be a Capulet.’ Juliet speaks from the heart and does not dwell on appearance and like Romeo she is willing to prove this by forgoing her name and marrying Romeo.
Juliet is a practical person and is concerned for Romeos safety so she is wondering how he managed to get there. ‘how camest thou hither, tell me and wherefore? The orchard walls are high and hard to climb. And the place thou death, considering who thou art, if any of the kinsmen find thee here.’ Her concern shows true love because she knows if someone finds out he is there he is a dead man.