At the very beginning of the story Juliet is quite shy and does what she’s told however in act III scene she’s secretly gone behind her families back and I think she’s grown up a lot since the beginning of the story. I think the audience would feel very sorry for Juliet in this scene because of the way her father treats her when he finds out that she doesn’t want to marry Paris.
At the beginning of the story Capulet is quite friendly, we know this as he throws a big party and also tells Tybalt to leave Romeo alone, however in this scene he shows anger, rage and brutality towards Juliet, ‘God had lent us but this only child, but now I see this one child is one too much’ this shows that Capulet is basically saying that he no longer wants Juliet as she is too much trouble. An Elizabethan audience watching this would probably agree with Capulet behaviour after her father has gone to so much trouble she’s jus ungrateful, whereas a 20th century audience would think that his behaviour was way out of order in 1) what he says to Juliet 2) what he says to the nurse.
The nurse says, ‘you are to blame, my lord, to rate her so’ meaning it’s Capulet’s fault for her behaviour and if he did not start the fighting with the Montague's then the current problem would not be a problem. An Elizabethan audience would be extremely shocked by this comment, as a nurse would not be expected to say something like this it is not her place to say.
A 20th century audience would probably feel sorry for Juliet and agree with the nurse, however an Elizabethan audience would probably be shocked at this behaviour in the nurse as this is out of line for someone of the nurses social class to argue with someone of Capulet social class and they would probably agree with Capulet’s reaction, ‘and why my lady wisdom? Hold your tongue…’
In my opinion I think that Capulet is a bad father, although he says he has Juliet’s best interests at heart by marrying her to someone who’ll provide and look after her, I think that if he truly cared for Juliet he would have taken more interest in her throughout her upbringing rather than leaving it up to the nurse even though I understand this was the style of parenting at the time I still feel he would not know his daughter well enough to make an important decision such as this for her.
At the point when Capulet loses his temper with Juliet, the atmosphere would be both tense with the wonder of how far Capulet loses his temper with Juliet the atmosphere would be both tense with the wonder of how far Capulet will go and full of sympathy for Juliet at the way she has now been spoke to by her father also considering the fact her newly wed husband has just been banished and she may never see him again and now her father wants her to marry someone else.
At the end of this scene the nurse say to Juliet, ‘I think you are happy in this second match. For it excels your first’
After the nurse says this Juliet would feel betrayed by her especially as she had helped to get Romeo to the church to marry Juliet in the first place.
The decision of each character in this scene are vital to the rest of the play for example if the nurse hadn’t betrayed Juliet then she may have been able to confide in the nurse who could have stopped vital consequences such as Juliet having nowhere to go but to the priest whom had the only option of the sleeping pills, maybe with the nurses help Romeo would have known the plan rather then being left in the dark.
This scene is important to the play as a whole because the decisions and actions made in this scene effect the rest of the decisions made by the characters in the play and the fact that if just one character had done something different then it could have changed the end of the whole play, for instance if Capulet had been more understanding towards his daughter’s feelings about love and marriage then she would not have been so desperate to trick her family to thinking her dead ending in both hers and Romeos deaths, or if Romeo had waited just a few more seconds before taking the poison he would have seen Juliet wake up.
By Francesca Hickling
10I
