The vendetta is many generations old and by the year in which the play is set, the Montagues and the Capulets are taught to hate each other since the moment they are born. Romeo and Juliet did not start the vendetta nor were alive when the vendetta began, and so they cannot be blamed for it, or technically their love. However, the couple do not help matters by repeatedly meeting each other. They are guilty in that respect as Romeo avoids Benvolio and Mercutio when they are talking about him in Act 2 – Scene 1, and Juliet talks to Romeo at length from her balcony and keeps on returning to say goodbye to him.
Although the couple have not known each other for even a day, there is a mutual attraction between each other, and Shakespeare wants to convey the message of ‘love at first sight’. The couple use poetic language about each other as shown in line 15 when Romeo describes her eyes as ‘two of the fairest stars in all the heaven’. This language shows of how much Romeo and Juliet have feelings for each other though Romeo has only looked at her eyes once.
Romeo’s love for Juliet made him risk his life in this scene when he climbed over the wall into the Capulet household by ‘love’s light wings’. Romeo was not planning to even speak to Juliet, just wanting to look at her and at any time a member of the Capulet house, like Tybalt, could have came across him.
Hyperboles are a major theme in this scene with Juliet saying “My bounty is as boundless as the sea” on line 133 and Romeo saying “A thousand times goodnight!” on lines 154-155. The use of hyperboles emphasises the affection between the couple and also makes the languages sound elaborate and elegant.
In the scene, Juliet appears to have doubts of her love for Romeo when, in line 118, she says that the relationship is “too rash, too unadvis’d, too sudden”, meaning that she needs time to consider the relationship rather than make a hasty decision. However, by line 144, she is speaking of the ‘purpose marriage’. This implies that she wants Romeo and herself to marry soon. This sudden change of heart shows that Juliet does not know what she wants to do, and although she tries to make a decision, her heart and her head are telling her to do two opposite things, her heart loves him yet her head knows of the danger because of the household vendetta.
