Juliet and her real mother Lady Capulet have a talk before Lord Capulet comes to Juliet’s bedroom. As Juliet talks to her mother Lady Capulet her speech has a double meaning. Juliet is weeping and Lady Capulet believes this to be about Tybalts death, the result from his fight with Romeo. Juliet is actually crying because Romeo has been banished from Verona to Mantua. At this point in the play the audience start to feel Juliet’s fear.
Throughout this scene Lord Capulet’s moods change constantly. At first Lord Capulet seems to be very calm in the way he speaks. The way he speaks to Juliet is very calm and poetic to begin with. He is gentle and concerned for Juliet’s crying as he also believes it is over Tybalt. He shows this by what he says, “When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew; but for the sunset of my brother’s son it rains downright”. Lord Capulet as he is speaking about the image of the storm is ironic as he will be the one
crying about his own daughter’s death. Their roles will be reversed.
At first Lord Capulet does not realise Juliet is rejecting to marry Paris. He then accuses Juliet of being ungrateful. She cannot disobey her father. It is not allowed. This is when his personality changes rapidly as he expected Juliet to react differently to the news. Juliet is confused and doesn’t argue with her father, she cannot tell him she is already married to Romeo. This therefore creates a dramatic effect. Lord Capulet then refers to Juliet as “she”. This is not emotive and is used to create distance and show they are not close as a father and daughter should be.
Juliet’s reaction is not because she doesn’t want to marry Paris or she hates the idea of an arranged marriage it is because of wider circumstances and that is that she loves Romeo. It is very crucial. On hearing this from Juliet, Lord Capulet is very discontented. His attitude and personality change even more dramatically. He demands that Juliet will marry Paris, he tells Juliet that he will drag her to the church and insults her, “And yet ‘not proud’, mistress minion, you” The language used by Lord Capulet when he is angry is very short and the exclamation marks and absence of full stops indicate to us that he is not stopping to catch his breath. It is quite aggressive and would obviously upset Juliet even more than she already is. This also helps to lead to the tragedy to come about in the play. Lord Capulet uses insulting words and puts orders forward to Juliet. He is not going to give up.
Lord Capulet uses repetition of ordering Juliet to go to church to marry Paris. If Juliet does not go and does not marry Paris then Lord Capulet is going to disown her, “I tell thee what: get thee to church o’ Thursday, Or never after look me in the face”. Juliet has to do as he says or else. This is a problem for Juliet as she will be disowned and left for dead on the streets with nothing. Lord Capulet uses violent language towards Juliet. He say, “My fingers itch”, and this will indicate to the audience that he wants to hit Juliet. This shows the violence in his character compared to the calm and loving father he was portrayed as earlier in the play. Juliet is Lord Capulet’s only daughter and he had invested all his hope in her.
At this point the nurse now tries to step in and defend Juliet. She is very protective of Juliet as she treats Juliet like her own child and is more of a mother figure to Juliet than her own real mother Lady Capulet. Lord Capulet again reacts violently. I believe this is justified of Lord Capulet as the nurse should not get involved in family issues but then again she is like a surrogate mother. The nurse is still a servant and she is n no position to argue against him, because she is sticking up for Juliet would have made Lord Capulet more angry. Although Lord Capulet should not speak to the nurse like he does he should ask her to leave, but this shows how angry and violent Lord Capulet is.
Lord Capulet then starts to become calmer towards the situation, asks the nurse not to question a Capulet’s opinion. Then he politely tells the nurse that they don’t need her opinion. A dutiful father who he believes himself to be expects to have a dutiful daughter. He believes Paris is a good match and says he has good qualities such as a noble gentleman; he is young and will care for her and provide for Juliet as he is wealthy.
Lord Capulet believes Juliet is his property and she has to do what he says as he is in control of her life as he thinks. This is also ironic as Juliet has gone behind their back and lied to her parents and married Romeo who is the sworn enemy to the Capulet family a Montague. Juliet has two options either refuses to marry Paris and be disowned and leave home penniless or marry Paris and become wealthy and please her family but be unfaithful to her one true love Romeo.
I believe there is some justification for the way Lord Capulet behaves here as he is just acting like any father of that time would. I think Lord Capulet thinks his daughter has no rights and is too young to make any good decisions in her life for herself. A daughter had no choice in the decisions made in her life in the thirteenth century. This heralds the beginning of the end. Juliet appeared to agree that an arranged marriage was an ‘honour’. She said this to keep her parents happy but she had other plans, to visit Friar Laurence.
There were other parts of the play where Lord Capulet would behave like this. He is a hypocrite as he can give orders to Tybalt but he doesn’t think the rules apply to him an example is fighting. In Act 3 scene 5 Paris asks for Juliet’s hand in marriage. Lord Capulet tells Paris to wait another couple of years but then a couple of days later he changes his mind. Also in Act 1 scene 5 Lord Capulet reacts violently to Tybalt at the ball. He calls Tybalt “saucy” this means impetuous. This shows that Lord Capulet has a split personality; he can be either pleasant or vile towards people.
In conclusion I think Lord Capulet has some justification for the way in which he acts and the contrast in his personality. He can be complicated and complex with a violent or caring side to him. I think a modern day audience would react differently to the way he acts than a 16th Century audience would as people behaved more that way than they do in modern day. Daughters such as Juliet have more freedom to choose what to do with their life in most cultures at the present time. The audience in this scene learn a lot about Lord Capulet’s character and how he behaves to certain things which happen in life although a modern day audience would interpret his actions different to a 16th Century audience.
