This scene is very important in context to the play because it is a turning point in the play. Before this scene, the couple are very happy and in love. However, this is the scene where they are forced to say goodbye, perhaps for good. The couple are now separated and unhappy. Furthermore, Juliet has been told that she is to marry someone that she does not love. This causes Juliet to become desperate and to consider suicide, as she can not see a way out. She loves Romeo, but can not be with him since he has been banished. She is depressed and alone; she feels like everyone has abandoned her and she has no one to talk to.
There is a lot of dramatic irony throughout the scene, as the audience know the real reason Juliet is crying.
The audience sympathise for Juliet, because of her situation. They can empathise with her sadness, as things seem to get worse and worse for her and Romeo.
The first part of this scene shows an interaction between Romeo and Juliet in her bedroom. It starts with a romantic and flirty atmosphere, as Juliet is telling Romeo to stay with her:
’Yon light is not daylight, I know it…
Therefore stay yet; thou need’st not to be gone’
The couple want to spend the optimum amount of time together, without Romeo being discovered, before they have to separate. The couple are disagreeing on whether they can hear a nightingale or a lark singing outside. Juliet is desperate to convince Romeo, and herself, that it was a nightingale. This would mean that daytime, and Romeo’s departure, would be hours away and they can spend more time together. Romeo knows he has to go and that:
‘It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east:
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.’
He knows he has to leave, and tricks Juliet into realising it too.
‘Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so.
How is‘t, my soul? Let’s talk; it is not day.
It is, it is! Hie hence, be gone, away!’
When the Nurse arrives, Romeo definitely has to leave. There is a change in atmosphere created by Shakespeare, to a feeling of rushing and panic. The couple are now sorrowful, and Juliet fears that they will not meet again. However, Romeo reassures her that they will:
‘O, think’st thou we shall ever meet again?
I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve
For sweet discourses in our times to come.’
Juliet also talks about having a premonition about seeing Romeo dead in the future. She tells Romeo of her worries, but Romeo tries to comfort her again, telling her to trust him.
This opening part of the scene causes the audience to feel sadness. Shakespeare uses dramatic irony at this point. The couple believe that they will meet again, but the audience already know from the prologue that this is a tragedy where ‘A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life’. Nevertheless, the audience still hopes that there will, somehow, be a happy ending throughout.
Lady Capulet enters Juliet’s bedroom. She misinterprets Juliet’s crying as grief for the death of her cousin, Tybalt, instead of as sadness of her new husband’s leaving. However, Juliet lets her mother assume this is so and uses language which can be interpreted in different ways, depending on how much of the play is known by each character, or the audience.
‘Yet let me weep for such a feeling of loss.’
Her mother assumes that she means the loss of her cousin to death; whereas, the audience know she is weeping for the loss of her husband to Mantua, as she probably still has doubts of their chances of meeting again.
There is also an atmosphere of deceit between the mother and daughter, as Juliet is lying to her mother about her reasons for crying and has not told her about her secret wedding. At this time, she would not have had a say in her marriage, even though it is her life. An unmarried daughter would not get much say in anything in her life, as it would be decided by her parents. When she married, her husband would be in charge. The arranged marriage would have been more like a business deal, as the father finds a family to improve their wealth and reputation etc.
Juliet speaks about Romeo so intensely to keep up the pretence. She believes that Romeo is innocent and would like him pardoned, so they have a chance to be together. However, while talking to her mother, she tells her:
‘Ay, madam, from the reach of these my hands:
Would none but I might venge my cousins death!’
Her mother wants to kill Romeo and get revenge for Tybalt’s death; however, she does not seem to notice that parts of her daughter’s speech could be more to do with love for Romeo than hate. For example:
‘Indeed, I never shall be satisfied
With Romeo, till I behold him-dead-‘
The obvious interpretation by her mother is that she wants him dead, because of the death of Tybalt. It could also mean, to us, the audience, that she won’t be happy unless she is with Romeo and keeps to her marriage vows, in the sense of staying with Romeo until death. However, most of her speech just seems to keep up the pretence and she pretends to hate the name of Romeo.
Again, Shakespeare has used dramatic irony, since we have an insight behind Juliet’s words to her mother with relevance to Romeo. Also, the audience feel more sadness for Juliet, as she has lost her cousin and can not see her husband, and is unlikely to see him again. To add to this, she can not even talk to anyone, not even her family, about this.
There is now a change in the dialogue. Lady Capulet changes the conversation to a topic that she believes will make Juliet happy. The only reason Lady Capulet came to Juliet’s bedroom was to inform her of her arranged marriage to Paris to take place on Thursday. Lady Capulet thinks this is exciting news and that Juliet should also be excited and happy, as:
‘The County Paris, at Saint Peter’s Church,
Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.’
However, there is now tension between the two, as Juliet tells her mother that she does not want to marry Paris. She refuses outright, as she says she is not ready; she does not want to marry someone who has not even come to woo her, and that she would marry Romeo, whom she supposedly hates, before she will marry Paris.
When Lord Capulet enters the room, he makes the following speech:
‘When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew;
But for the sunset of my brother's son
It rains downright.
How now! a conduit, girl? what, still in tears?
Evermore showering? In one little body
Thou counterfeit'st a bark, a sea, a wind;
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;
Who, raging with thy tears, and they with them,
Without a sudden calm, will overset
Thy tempest-tossed body. How now, wife!
Have you deliver'd to her our decree?’
Throughout the speech, he makes comparisons towards weather, for example, he compares Juliet’s crying to ‘showering’ and that the tears from her eyes are like the sea and the wind, and he says the death of Tybalt is a ‘sunset’ and says ‘it rains downright’. The speech is full of imagery and techniques, like these. At this point, Lord Capulet seems nice and concerned for his daughter and her constant crying.
The end of the speech is about the ‘decree’, which is the arranged marriage. The word does not make it sound like a marriage, which is meant to be about love; it sounds like a law that is not to be broken. Also, the ‘decree’ is only just being told to Juliet. She has had no say in this irreversible decision, even though it is her life.
When Capulet learns that Juliet is refusing to marry, he gets very angry at Juliet and cannot understand her lack of gratitude. Juliet tries to explain:
‘Not proud, you have; but thankful, that you have:
Proud can I never be of what I hate;
But thankful even for hate, that is meant love.’
Nevertheless, Capulet does not want to hear any of this. He just wants Juliet to do as he says, as all daughters would have been expected to do in this time. He starts to shout verbal abuse to her; he is now in a terrible temper. He calls her a ‘green-sicken carrion’ and ‘disobedient wretch’. The audience would probably fear for Juliet at this point, due to her father’s bad language, which probably wouldn’t be expected of from someone of an upper class at the time.
He tells her that he now would rather have no children than have Juliet as a daughter, which must be a horrible thing for a daughter to hear. Lord Capulet tells Juliet that they thought she was a blessing when she was born. However, he says now, in contrast, he thinks of her as a curse.
Throughout Lord Capulet’s rant, Lady Capulet and Juliet are quite alarmed and fearful at the extent of Capulet’s rage and his language, which may also surprise the audience. In many plays, the audience can also feel fear towards the character by the sheer volume and tone of their voice; it can be startling and trigger a reflex to be scared. Shakespeare has crafted this to be so because, for one thing, the audience need to be kept captivated, and also, any father at the time would probably have reacted the same way in this situation.
The Nurse tries to defend Juliet against Lord Capulet, which would have been very brave for an employee of her low level in the household and in society, since she would have had no employee rights, and this outburst could have cost her job. Until now, the Nurse has been very quiet, but she may have feared for Juliet, since her father had just admitted that ‘My fingers itch’. The Nurse would have known Juliet from birth and would probably have the instinct to protect her from danger. In contrast to this, throughout Lord Capulet’s rant, Lady Capulet has not done anything to protect her daughter; she defers to her husband, since that had always been expected of her.
The Nurse’s actions enrage Lord Capulet even more, though his anger turns more towards the employee instead, which may have been her intention, as well as trying to get Capulet to listen to Juliet to understand. Still, Lord Capulet gets more and more angry as the Nurse tries to talk to him; He even refuses to let her speak when she politely asks permission.
‘May not one speak?
Peace, you mumbling fool!
Utter your gravity o'er a gossip's bowl;
For here we need it not.’
Lord Capulet believes the Nurse is unhelpful and wants her to remain quiet, as it is not her place to say anything.
Lord Capulet tells Juliet that he has always given Juliet everything she needed as a child, and now he has worked hard to find her a perfect groom. He informs her of his disappointment by her response. He notifies her that if she does not marry, she will not welcome in the house. He then leaves. Juliet next turns to her mother, in the hope that she will be more rational.
‘Is there no pity sitting in the clouds,
That sees into the bottom of my grief?
O, sweet my mother, cast me not away!
Delay this marriage for a month, a week;
Or, if you do not, make the bridal bed
In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.’
However, Lady Capulet turns her away. She tells her that she is done with her; she can do what she wants, but she will not help her. Lady Capulet has sided with her husband, as would have been the way then. She seems very disappointed and saddened with her child. Lady Capulet then leaves.
Her parents attitudes toward Juliet make her feel very upset and frightened, as well as distraught, as she has no way out of the wedding, as she would not want to displease her parents, but she also would not want to forget about Romeo. She has to make a big decision, and either way, someone is going to get hurt. She is probably feeling quite depressed at the moment.
As her mother will not help her, Juliet now turns to the Nurse for advice and comfort, as she does not know what to do. The atmosphere is slightly more relaxed, as there is no shouting and Juliet views the Nurse as a close friend and a substitute mother. However, Juliet is hoping for advice on stopping the wedding, but instead, the Nurse turns on Romeo and repeats Paris’s excellent qualities. She tells Juliet that she should forget about Romeo, as ‘Romeo's a dishclout to him’. The Nurse is being very practical and seems to genuinely think that Juliet will be happy with Paris. She tries to steer Juliet in another direction for dramatic purposes.
Juliet now feels betrayed by the Nurse and develops a much lower respect for her than previously, as she has just insulted her husband; she feels abandoned by her friend. She pretends to be comforted and convinced by the Nurse, and tells her that she will confess to the Friar and will marry Paris. The Nurse leaves and Juliet reveals her true feelings in a powerful soliloquy:
‘Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!
Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,
Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue
Which she hath praised him with above compare
So many thousand times? Go, counsellor;
Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.
I'll to the friar, to know his remedy:
If all else fail, myself have power to die.’
The use of exclamations by Shakespeare shows the anger of Juliet. She now thinks the Nurse is hypocritical, since previously, she had praised Romeo and thought him a good person. But now, she has turned around and contradicted everything she had said! She does not know whether the Nurse asking her to break her marriage vows is the greater sin, or the sin of the Nurse’s hypocritical words. Juliet decides that she can no longer trust the Nurse with anything, and decides to seek guidance from Friar Lawrence, and if he won’t help, the only way for her is to take her own life.
Juliet is obviously isolated and depressed/ suicidal. The audience feel for her, as she is clearly desperate to be with Romeo, as he appears to be the only person she can rely on, in her eyes.
Shakespeare created many different atmospheres between the characters in this scene. There is a nice romantic scene with Romeo and Juliet. However, when he leaves, the atmosphere turns sadder. The main one is anger throughout the bulk of the scene, between Capulet and Juliet when she refuses to marry. At the end of the scene, there is a feeling of sadness, betrayal and loneliness.
