Paris asks Capulet for permission to marry Juliet, Capulet hesitates, because Juliet is so young but says he would agree if Juliet consents. Then Capulet says ‘She hath not seen the change of fourteen years,’ she’s too small to marry yet. In this scene it is made quite clear overall that Capulet loves Juliet because he says ‘she is the hopeful lady of my earth,’ meaning she’s the only one that can carry on the legacy of his family and he loves her.
In scene three Juliet is informed that Paris wants to marry her and tells her to notice how handsome he is at the feast that night Juliet agrees to see if she likes him.
‘ I’ll look to like if looking liking move But no more will endart mine eye Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.’ In this, Juliet’s 1st appearance she’s obedient to her parents when she has fallen in love.
This scene is one of the most vivid scenes in Romeo and Juliet kiss here as well, not only that but he compares Juliet to a shrine. This being an extended metaphor comparing Juliet to a ‘Holy shrine,’ could be Romeo’s inflated love verse but indicates the profundity of their love as idolatrous. Their kiss too becomes a sacred act of prayer. Romeo ups the stakes later on in the sonnet. Juliet’s assent does not come until the final line and although she remains passive and accepting, her choice as profound repercussions. The sonnet prescribes a dramatically effective piece of staging. In the same scene she says ‘If he be married my grave is like to be my wedding bed. He speaks to Juliet, and when he does so it is in the tones of adoration and with the religious imagery which he had used before. He presents himself as pilgrim approaching the shrine of a saint; women were commonly depicted as an angel, or goddess, whom a male suitor approaches with expression of his unworthiness and undeserving. The rhetoric of the poetry supposes that it is the woman’s part to confer blessing, mercy, and grace upon the man by answering his prayer or plea. Equally conventional is the sonnet form, upon which Romeo here embarks. Language, genre and imagery are all at this point telling the audience that this is a moment of true love. Ordinarily the male voice speaks, the woman is adored but she remains silent. In this passage it is different because Juliet speaks; she also addresses Romeo as an equal. The sonnet upon which Romeo embarks is taken up by Juliet. They compose it together each verse speaking a quatrain, and then the lines aren’t equal. During the sonnet the image Romeo introduces it is developed by both of them, also Juliet slows herself to be as witty as Romeo. She turns aside his request for a kiss with the reflection that religious devotion is satisfied with touching the statue of her saint and with hands clasped in prayer, and that is in prayer that lips express love. When Romeo replies with a request that she ‘let lips do what hands do? They should pray by touching,’ it is finally at near the end the audience would have expected them to kiss.
With another exchange of wit, they come to the idea that, as Romeo has purged his sin by this act of devotion, Juliet has now to be cleansed of the sin she has received from him. They are about to kiss when the second sonnet is interrupted by the nurse. The exchange between Benvolio and Romeo, recalls Romeo’s earlier prediction, it’s echoed in Juliet’s line, ‘My grave is like to be my wedding bed.’ From the first appearance of the association of love and death, the love between Romeo and Juliet is marked out not only as exceptional but as doomed, both transcendent and at the mercy of the world. When Juliet says ‘Prodigious birth of love it is to me.’ Her words define this moment of meeting in terms both of birth and of death. Also in the same scene Juliet says ‘My only love sprung from my only hate,’ implying that the two families are enemies, so from this you realise they will be doomed forever.
Romeo resolves to seek the friar’s assistance to affect the marriage. Juliet not knowing that Romeo is below her balcony confesses she loves him. Friar Lawrence agrees to arrange the secret marriage. The friar, like the price, is anxious to end the feud between the two houses. Tybalt sends a challenge to Romeo. Preparations are made for their secret marriage. Juliet awaits the return of the nurse. She learns the arrangements for the marriage. Romeo and Juliet meet at the Friars cell. The Friar promises to make short work of marrying them. The high point of their happiness comes early in the play and the tragic events will follow in act three. Juliet makes Romeo more romantic ‘it is my lady.’ After parental, courtly and bawdy love this is a more direct passionate love towards Juliet after having overheard her at the Capulet’s mansion after the party. This is the most romantic scene in the play and their passion is heightened by the danger of them being discovered together. Juliet’s speech shows her confusion and her willingness to dispense with convention as she takes control of the situation and humorously mocks Romeo as he reverts to his courtly verse, swearing by the moon. Her character has evolved greatly from the thirteen year old child. Her love is deep for Romeo, she has more awareness of the practicalities of the situation than Romeo and she speaks much more frankly no. Deception is not her nature and nothing less than her love for Romeo would have prompted her to deceive her parents. This aspect of her character is enforced by the fact that she’s gradually isolated from everyone she knows and loves. Suspense, love and humour all increase the dramatic effectiveness of the scene because all these elements add more interest and more attraction to the scene. The diction for love poetry has a wide range. The implication of the hyperbole and contrivance of his speeches is that his feelings for Rosaline are not that deep. The sonnet is a great form of love poetry. Death always seems to accompany their love. Towards the end of act two scene two, when Juliet wishes Romeo was a ‘wanton bird,’ she admits she would ‘kill thee with much cherishing.’ This paradoxical image strikes an ominous note and reminds the audience, who have been swept along with the romantic intensity of the scene, that only one fate awaits the lovers. In accepting their love, in capturing and cherishing the wanton bird, they are at the same time embracing their doom.
There is a great joy and humour in this scene because the nurse does not give her the message straight away she builds up the tension as the audience is made to wait its impatience growing with Juliet’s. Not knowing the message involves us in sympathy with Juliet, amusement and irritation at the nurse and relief when the plan is made known. The scene ends with Juliet speaking of ‘high fortune’ is ominous in tragedy, it is when at the height of good fortune that protagonist is most likely to fall. Friar Lawrence’s ‘these violent delights have violent ends,’ saying their impetuousness is going to cause consequences and they will have to face it.
The wedding scene is very brief compared to the tragic outcome of their union, the scene in the vault. Juliet as the bride of death she herself speaks like this being the moment after she has first met Romeo, ‘Go ask his name. If he be married, my grave is like to be my wedding bed,’ Lady Capulet reminds the audience of this way of thinking about Juliet when she exclaims, in her anger at Juliet’s refusal to marry Paris, ‘I would the fool were married to her grave,’ and Capulet speaks similarly when he thinks Juliet is dead. Death is my son in law. Death is my heir.’ Paris, weeping at the vault thinks that he grieves by Juliet’s bridal bed and finally, Romeo preparing to join Juliet on death, and seeing her beauty, thinks death, love and her keeps her beautiful. ‘That unsubstantial death is enormous.’ Remarks like these means that death is always in the back of the minds of the audience, they encourage us to expect it to be the result of the lovers affair and so impress on us the hopelessness of their situation.
Juliet begins the play as a submissive and obedient thirteen year old girl who has lived a sheltered life and in the course of the play develops into a resolute woman. When she is without Romeo, cut off from her parents because they do not know of her marriage, even the nurse lets her down. These repeated desertions are cumulatively very striking Juliet’s exclamation, ‘ancient damnation!’ Marks the final break with all the guardians of her childhood. She is now alone, a tragic heroine ‘my dismal scene I needs must act alone.’ Juliet is never posturingly foolish in the way of Romeo but she, too under goes a change. At the beginning she is modest and quiet. When her mother suggests that Paris might make a good husband she replies ‘I’ll look to like, if looking liking more.’ She’s prepared to be totally guided entirely by her parents. For Juliet, the meeting with Romeo is an awakening to the fact that love is more than final obedience, and with this she discovers a new resolution. She contradicts her promise of obedience by marrying Romeo secretly. She emerges as a strange and practical personality more than Romeo. It’s Juliet, who first mentions marriage, and sets Romeo on to arrange it. Her change from the obedient girl to a passionate and romantic lover. The shadow of death which accompanies their love and the idea of tragedy born out of hostile fate. In all acts there is a fight or a death. Death is also just a part of their fate and can’t be avoided by them. Its fate and chance that leads to their death and others for example if Friar Lawrence’s letter arrived, then maybe there would not have been a fight and Romeo would not have killed himself.
Romeo and Juliet is a great play with many literary and descriptive tragic writing makes it into a great tragic piece of writing.
By Abdul Khan
