Romeo offers to stay and die to prove his love, but Juliet says he must leave. She is upset and sad as she thinks that they may never meet again. You feel sorry and frustrated for Juliet because she has an image of Romeo ‘dead in the bottom of a tomb’. This is a premonition that Romeo will die and tells the audience the play is about fate. This is ironic as he does die. This is linked to fate because Romeo and Juliet are “star cross lovers” so whatever happens to them they can do nothing about it as they’re fate has already been decided.
As Romeo leaves, Lady Capulet enters Juliet’s bedroom and thinks that her daughter is crying over the death of her cousin Tybalt, ‘Evermore weeping for your cousin’s death? What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?’ And that Juliet is also weeping because proper revenge had not been carried out on Romeo who killed him ‘because the traitor murderer lives’. Lady Capulet expresses her hatred for what Romeo has done and Juliet appears to agree but what she really means is that she loves Romeo.
Lady Capulet tries to cheer Juliet up by telling her that her father has made plans for her to marry Paris. Juliet refuses to marry him. This is another example of rebellion as Juliet is disobeying her parents. Juliet does not have a very good relationship with her mother, as the nurse is her real mother figure. The nurse’s main role in the play is companion and advisor to Juliet. Juliet and Lady Capulet do not have the same mother and daughter relationship that you would expect to see today. Nowadays, daughters and mothers usually have a very good relationship but Juliet and Lady Capulet don’t. Her mother is really the nurse as she cares and looks after her.
Act 3 Scene 5 is significant to the rest of the play in many ways. Through out the play there are hints of how fate will later have consequences in the play. Romeo says in Act 1 Scene 4 “…my mind misgives/Some consequence yet hanging in the stars/ Shall bitterly begin his fearful date/ With this night’s revels…” This is a strange feeling that fate will take a hand at the Capulet Ball and that it will change his life. And then later in the play at the Capulet Ball he meets Juliet.
Then the Nurse and Lord Capulet enter the bedroom, Lady Capulet tells him that Juliet has refused to marry Paris. Lord Capulet loses his temper and threatens to throw her out of the house and disown her if she does not change her mind. “ And you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend; And you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the street”. In other words, if she is his daughter he can give her hand in marriage if she refuses she is not his daughter and he won’t care what happens to her. In the 16th century when the play was written, fathers had much more power and control over their daughters than today. Juliet is nearly fourteen and would have been thought of as the property of her father until married. As a leading citizen of Verona Lord Capulet would arrange the marriage to the best possible suitor. The threat of being disowned could bring enormous pressure for a young girl if she refused her father’s choice. Today we do have to obey what our parents but not to the same extent as Juliet as she is forced to marry someone she doesn’t love. Also today everyone is brought up by their parents so consequently you are close to them however this is not the case for Juliet.
Juliet turns to her mother for support and to change Lord Capulet’s mind but she refuses. Juliet has again not been able to get sympathy or help from her mother, and her father is denying her love and understanding. Lady Capulet shows unexpected cruelty. She makes no attempt to sympathise with her daughter or to understand her feelings. Her wicked nature is seen in her plan to poison Romeo and in her preference to see ‘Juliet married to her grave,’ rather than put up with Juliet’s disobedience to herself and her husband. Juliet’s nurse tries to stand-up for her, ‘God in heaven bless her! You are to blame my lord’, but is shouted down and told to shut-up. For a servant to speak to the master of the house like this was a very bold thing to do. She is the only one who understands Juliet as she brought her up and knows the secret about Romeo.
Juliet’s father becomes more angry, and Lady Capulet tries to calm him down. He feel he has worked hard to get this good husband for her and that he would like to slap her. He mocks and threatens Juliet who again asks for pity from her mother. She will not speak up for her daughter and in fact seems disgusted by her. This part of the scene is in sharp contrast to the quiet, anxious farewell of the lovers in the beginning of the scene. Both Capulet’s are vehement as they chastise their daughter when she refuses to marry Paris. They are perplexed and furious over her disobedience. Lord Capulet, whose temper has been shown before, explodes into a violent rage, ’Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wench!’. Lord Capulet threatens to disown Juliet if she does not obey his demands. ’ You be mine, I’ll give you to my friend, and you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets’. The irony is that in her own mind she has already been exiled from her family when Romeo left Verona. Juliet is left alone with only her nurse to turn to.
Juliet feels desperate and asks her nurse for advice about what to do. She says “My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven, How shall that faith return again to earth, Unless that husband send it me from heaven, By leaving earth”. Juliet is saying that she cannot marry again unless Romeo dies. She becomes increasingly desperate for comfort and advice asking three times, hoping that the nurse will help her. The nurse does not reply straight away thinking the problem over she thinks she has found an answer. She believes that Romeo and Juliet will never be able to live as man and wife and that Juliet should go ahead and marry Paris. The nurse is quite sure that Romeo and Juliet will never be able to live as man and wife in Verona. Juliet is shocked, and realises that the nurse doesn’t understand or care about her deep love for Romeo. Juliet also changes her feelings towards her nurse who has been an old friend and second mother. At this point in the play you feel immense sympathy towards Juliet because she is now on her own. There is no one that Juliet can trust anymore as the nurse has left her side. This is an example of betrayal as Juliet as been betrayed by the one person that she thought she could trust. The audience may turn against the nurse at this point due to her betrayal .Her love for Romeo has rapidly changed her from her childish ways to maturity.
Juliet tells the nurse she has been a great comfort and implies that she has changed her mind about marrying Paris, ’I am gone, having displeased my father, to Lawrence cell, to make confession and to be absolved’. The nurse is pleased and leaves to tell her parents. Alone now Juliet reveals her true feelings of betrayal by her nurse, and vows never to trust or share her secrets again. She feels very alone without those closest to her and leaves to see the Friar. ‘I’ll to the Friar to know his remedy, if all else fails, myself have the power to die.’ Juliet is so desperate now that she will even take her own life. This is ironic as she does actually kill herself. Juliet has learned to only trust herself and if the Friar cannot help her she will kill herself.
By Sam Freeman 11P
