Juliet: “Believe me, love, it’s the nightingale”
Romeo: “It was the lark the herald of morn,
No nightingale...
...Nights candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.”
Juliet’s words help the audience to understand how deep Romeo and Juliet’s love actually is and as Juliet tries to persuade Romeo that it is not yet day and that she wishes this night could last forever. Shakespeare’s language helps the audience to imagine Juliet on an island of happiness among a sea of trouble. At this stage Juliet is warned by the nurse that Lady Capulet is coming.
After Romeo has left Juliet is distraught as she is losing her true love, she is anxious, melancholic and troubled meanwhile Lady Capulet is Distressed after Tybalt’s death while also being equivocal.
Lady Capulet: “Well, girl, thou weep’st not so much for his death
As the villain lives which slaughtered him.” This line is used to represent Juliet’s lusting emotion to see Romeo, Shakespeare uses this line expertly to create images in the audiences mind showing why he has become one of the greatest playwrights of all time.
Juliet: “What villain, madam?”
Lady Capulet: “That same villain Romeo...
Juliet(aside): ...
Lady Capulet: “That is because the traitor murderer lives.
Juliet: “Ay, madam, from the reach of these hands.
Would none but I might venge my cousins death”
The audience are presented the contrasting distresses of Juliet and Lady Capulet. The language used by Juliet has double meanings and Lady Capulet is equivocal to only one of the meanings and is unaware of Juliet’s wishes to be with Romeo with a sense of dramatic irony. Overall if I was staging this part of the play I would have Lady Capulet moving around the stage tidying while Juliet looks out across to Mantua where Romeo is, this leads the audience to feel the stoic of Juliet and her ambiguousity of her and Romeo’s future.
Later in Act 3, Scene 5 the audience are displayed Juliet’s intense emotions over Romeo and how Lady Capulet is ambivalent over Juliet’s feelings.
Juliet: “ ..... O how my heart abhors
To hear him named and cannot come to him.
To wreck the love I bore my cousin
Upon his body that hath slaughtered him!”
This is a very turbulent period for Juliet after the loss of her cousin Tybalt and the banishment of husband Romeo. Shakespeare uses his vast knowledge of the English language of his time to create an image of Juliet’s feelings in the audience’s mind of Juliet being engulfed by her troubles.
Following the announcement by Lady Capulet that Juliet will marry County Paris. Juliet is panic stricken as she must marry Paris or risk being disowned by her family, another risk with marrying Paris is the possibility that Lady Capulet and Capulet discover she is already married to Romeo and thus refuses saying
Juliet: “Not proud you have but thankful that you have:
Proud can I never be of what I hate,
But thankful even for hate that is meant love.”
Shakespeare conveys Capulet’s anger in lines 149 and 150 in a very distinguishable way as Capulet’s mood is predominately one of confusion as he use contradicting vocabulary;
Capulet: “How how, how how, chopt-logic? What is this?
‘Proud’, and ‘I thank you’ and ‘I thank you not’,”
The confused mood on stage allows Capulet to gain the upper hand in the argument, as he becomes irrational. Although Lady Capulet feels sympathy for Juliet, she knows she must not question his judgement as in the period this play is set society was very male dominated and thus Shakespeare’s contemporary audience would not see this as unusual compared with a modern day society would feel this play undermines the equal entities in today’s society.
Later in the scene the nurse tries to stand up for Juliet believe that Juliet should not have to marry Paris the nurse blames Capulet for Juliet’s refusal.
Nurse: “God in heaven bless her!
You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.”
Despite both Juliet’s and Nurses displeasure at the marriage Capulet is insistent on Juliet being wed to County Paris while his wife tries to sedate his anger.
As this scene comes to an end the lines 205 to 233 are important to the overall feel of the play. Juliet requests a solution from the Nurse asking how the marriage can be prevented and asks for some comfort, as she is very stoic and melancholic.
Juliet: “O God! – O Nurse, how shall this be prevented?
My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven;
How shall that faith return again to earth,
.......
Some comfort, Nurse.”
The Nurse’s reply shocks Juliet as the nurse suggests that Juliet marry County Paris causing Juliet to feel betrayed and she goes to desperate measures to prevent the marriage.
Overall I believe the characters’ beliefs effect the audience in a variety of ways depending on the audiences views and beliefs. Shakespeare’s language during Act 3 especially builds up the tension felt throughout the play to allow the audience a spectacular finale in the concluding two acts that keeps the audience guessing.
Written By
Elliot Mewton 10N