One of these tragic events is when Capulet arranges the marriage between Juliet and Paris a few days after she marries Romeo. Juliet, however, doesn’t like Paris so Capulet has to act as the ‘go-between’ between them. Juliet also has to hide the fact that she is in love with and is even married to Romeo by saying ‘him’ instead of saying something about Paris to her father. However she is talking about Romeo.
‘Ere he that should be husband comes to woo’ - Juliet
In this scene there is dramatic irony which in a sense is very tragic because the reader wants Romeo and Juliet to live together in peace.
This scene of Capulet trying to get Juliet to marry Paris proves him to be an ogre and not father-like at all. When Juliet says that she does not want to marry Paris he is very angry and acts very unfairly and he does not respect Juliet’s human values. However, you can also judge this as Juliet being disobedient as at that point in time, it was usual for parents to organise their child’s marriages without much consent from their child.
Throughout the play it is shown that Juliet doesn’t have a very good relationship with her father as he is portrayed as a quite evil man, neither with her mother because she always agrees with Capulet.
However, Juliet does have a parent figure – Nurse. Nurse is the only person, apart from Friar Lawrence, who knows about Romeo and Juliet and the only person that Juliet feels she can tell everything to. The same also goes with Romeo and Friar Lawrence. Friar Lawrence and Nurse, as the older generation, act as advisers and confidents to the younger generation, Romeo and Juliet. Throughout the play, Friar Lawrence and Nurse are portrayed as the only elder generation saviours of Romeo and Juliet getting married and being together, as the rest of the elder generation are shown to be totally against the thought of Romeo and Juliet, if they ever did find out.
Although there are many faults with the older generation of the play, fault also lies with the young generation. This is because, although the older generation of the two families despise each other, the young generation put this hate into action and injure each other and even kill each other. An example of this is when Mercutio is killed by Tybalt, even though Mercutio was trying to keep peace between Tybalt and Romeo. After this, because Romeo was friends with Mercutio, Romeo kills Tybalt -‘that late thou gavest me, for Mercutio’s soul’. Already from these two incidents you can see that the young generation are very violent.
In conclusion, yes, “Romeo and Juliet” is a play based upon the conflict between the old and the young, but in different ways; the young have more of a physical conflict while the old have a more traditional conflict. But there is also another conflict; old traditional values conflict with the modern passions of love between Romeo and Juliet. The adults are not at fault for believing in these values as we see that they are only brought-up in this same fashion. However Romeo's and Juliet’s unique passion diverts them away from these traditional teachings.
Giles Bidder
