In the prologue the audience picks up that the play will be about love and hatred because words like “love,” “mutiny” and “death” are used but more significantly there are more words linked with hate and death used for example “civil blood,” “misadventure” and “piteous overthrows.”
The play “Romeo and Juliet” is about 2 households in an ancient grudge when new mutiny produces a pair of star-crossed lovers who marry secretly and die. After an elaborate plan goes foolishly wrong but their death marked love buries their parent’s strife.
Lord Capulet, the father of Juliet was in charge of the Capulet family. He was quiet old. But was married to a younger woman. Juliet was his only living child but we knew that he has had other children “ Earth has swallowed all my hopes but she “ so the audience is told all his other children are dead and therefore he wanted his only child to be happy.” She’s the hopeful lady of my Earth “
Here the moral fibre of Lord Capulet uses metaphorical language to create imagery of his children being dead this style of language would be entertaining and pleasant for the audience to listen to.
During Shakespeare time fathers were very different from the fathers nowadays. The setting of the play is in Verona a patriarchal city where the fathers had held absolute sway over they daughters and if their daughters disagreed with them then they would feel intensely offended and they would put pride before love. Lord Capulet did this as he threatened to drag Juliet to the church if she did not go on her own will, “I will drag thee on a hurdle hither.” By comparing Lord Capulet’s as a father with today’s fathers and his behaviour and attitude with the daughters it is completely different. Now a days father do not worry about their daughters marriage because they know she will get a boy friend and if they want they could get married and then nobody could stop them because they can decide this marriage thing between themselves, they don’t need parents permission. It is all up to them who they want to choose.
In some Religions and Cultures people who wants to get married ask the Bride’s father e.g. in Islam.
Another difference between then and now is that when girls get married
They are usually above 18 but during the time the play was written many girls were married when they were still very young.
At times Lord Capulet is a very calm and reasonable man. When the young and rich county Paris requests to marry Capulets daughter he explain that Juliet is still 13 years old “ she hath not seen the change of fourteen.”
At the feast on Sunday Lord Capulet welcomes everybody and this shows that he is a very friendly man. Later he reminisces with his cousin about the past and when it comes to the time for the dancers to dance Capulet uses the excuse “ for you and I are past our dancing days,” and “How long is it since last yourself and I were in a mask.”
Also at the feast Tybalt, Capulets nephew recognizes Romeos voice and is annoyed that a Montague has come to a Capulets party, Tybalt asks for his sword, “fetch me my rapier boy.” But Capulet scolds Tybalt for inadequate a fight; he also goes on to say that Romeo is a “virtuous and well governed youth.”
Even though the character of Lord Capulet has many good points but he still has many appalling points.
In Act 3 Scene 5, after Juliet has told him she will not marry Paris, we see how thoughtless and selfish he is and we see that Lord Capulet does not even think about his daughter opinion and if she really wanted to marry him, this proves that he was a typical father of his time. He is so sure that Juliet will marry, he refers to Paris as his son, “Acquaint her here of my son Paris love.”
When Juliet says that she will not get married he gets very furious and insults her because his pride has been hurt. “You green-sickness,” “out you baggage, and later goes to threaten her and he wants “ my fingers itch.” His behaviour again quickly changed from cheerful to angry and he shouts out abuse at his daughter, he feels like hitting her.
Lord Capulet seems very good and caring father, we can see that when Lord Capulet goes into Juliet’s bedroom and finds her crying on the bed. Which he thinks the reason is because her cousin Tybalt has died. Lord Capulet looks at her tears and her shaking body and to give her a bit of comfort Lord Capulet says words which to water and storm. “How now, a conduct, girl?” “What, still in tears?” “Thou counterfeits a bark, a sea, a wind” “tempest-tossed body”. Lord Capulet says these words to cheer her mood up.
As Lord Capulet enters to Juliet’s room and he sees her in tears he uses words associated with water to create imagery, “drizzle,” “gentle rain,” and “tears are just a few examples.
When Juliet hears the plan about the person she pretends to marry Paris and when Lord Capulet hears this the day of the wedding forward so without knowing it he brought the tragedy forward and if he never brought the wedding forward then the letter may have actually reached Romeo.
In this scene, Lord Capulet is preparing for the wedding so he is talking rapid and quickly so the audience knows that he is very busy and this is another case of the stagecraft that the writer used. The actor would say these lines (short sharp sentences) very quickly and he would be moving around very quick on the stage to give the idea to the audience that he is very busy.
The overall behaviour can be described as him being a representative father of his time because he is very thoughtless but is behaviour is influenced by the fact that he was living in Verona at a time that Verona was patriarchal city.
In my view Lord Capulet is not to blame for the tragedy because he was just trying to be a very caring father and he wanted his daughter to be happy, ”she is the hopeful lady of my life.”
It was the hate of the feud that caused this tragedy of the star crossed lovers and as we are told, “Here is much to do with hate, but more to do with love,” and the love of Romeo and Juliet succeeded in bringing the families together but at a price of their lives.
