At the beginning of act 1, Lord Capulet is speaking to Paris about Paris’ suit to marry Juliet. Capulet doesn’t agree outright as he feels she is too young. This sets him apart from many fathers at the time, as it costmary for daughters to simply marry off for the family to make money. This shows that, Lord Capulet does care for his daughter and is not willing just to give her up in the way that many people would. However he does invite Paris to his banquet so that Paris can meet Juliet and so he can find out what Juliet thinks. Paris’ persistence may also show that he considers the potential marriage to be more than just a business transaction, which makes the audience worry about the consequences of this on the “star cross’d lovers” that they heard about in the prologue.
Para2
Then Lord Capulet tries to force Juliet to marry Paris but Juliet is respectful and polite, “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.” She is very polite in her reply and is saying that she is happy to have her father’ consent but that we will not agree until she has met the man. At the party that her father organised, for her to meet Paris in a casual way, she falls in love first sight with Romeo. This is when everything starts to change. Juliet’s character changes from passive to active even though she allows Romeo’s first kiss. As the two houses, Capulet’s and Montague’s hate each other that is why Juliet says “My only love sprung from my only hate”. She also says “If he be married my grave is like to be my wedding bed” which emphasises the dramatic irony as the audience knew the story, they all knew that Juliet was going to die soon after the wedding.
Final section
On Tuesday morning, the last time Romeo and Juliet exchange their love for each other, he leaves in a hurry scared of being found by Juliet’s mother. As Lady Capulet enters she finds Juliet weeping thinking that she is still sad about Tybalt’s death rather then Romeo’s departure as she still doesn’t know that her “young and innocent” daughter is already married. Then as her Nurse, her only friend left knowing about Romeo turns against her and tells Juliet’s father that she will marry Paris on Thursday. Juliet was surprised the nurse said “yes” for her and says to her mother “I cannot be married in such haste”. Her father enters soon after expecting his daughter to be all excited about the wedding he arranged on her behalf from what the nurse had said to Lord Capulet. He becomes enraged and demands that Juliet obey his “decree” and prepare for the wedding. The Nurse tries to defend Juliet, but she does not succeed. Lord Capulet also threatens to disown his daughter if she keeps denying him, the nurse takes her father’s side and tell Juliet to obey her father and Juliet takes refuge in Friar Lawrence’s church and asks him advice. When she arrives at the church she finds Paris talking to Friar Lawrence and manages to cleverly sidestep Paris’ compliments and references to their wedding. She then talks to Friar Lawrence and explains her dilemma.
Friar Lawrence proposes her to take this potion instead of killing herself, which will make her unconscious for 42 hours, Friar Lawrence also tells her that she is to take the potion on Wednesday night so that she will be able to wake up next to Romeo and leave Verona. Juliet accepts and leaves with the potion. Friar Lawrence was supposed to keep Romeo informed of this plan. The message though did not get to Romeo on time and Balthasar, Romeo’s cousin came to him telling him that his beloved wife is dead. Romeo goes to a person who tells him to go away goes into a fight with him and Romeo kills him and goes next to his beloved wife.
Final section
Throughout the play Juliet has evolved from a passive character and an obedient child into a rebellious and active child. She starts off accepting everything that her father tells her to do and ends up doing exactly the opposite. She doesn’t accept to get married to Paris and says that she would rather die then marry Paris which is dramatic irony because the audience knows that she has already married Romeo. She ends up courageous because she would have rather liked to die then live without her beloved husband and she killed herself to live forever and ever with him in heaven. Shakespeare made the marriage scene very short to make it seem like they wanted to get it out of the way, and then this is when a sense of doom and tragedy is created.
