Shakespeare uses some very apparent techniques to convey the love between Romeo and Juliet in this section of the scene in the play. Iambic pentameter is used by both Romeo and Juliet to show their want for each other. Inferring that there is a beat and that both of them are using it shows their hearts are beating, together; which represents the strength of the love within the play and also the passion between them – at the end of the play (after their death) iambic pentameter is no longer used, showing the stopping of their beating hearts. Also, Shakespeare uses the birdsong to represent the love between Romeo and Juliet, this is obvious because the sounds of the birds are only mentioned when Romeo and Juliet are together, and as soon as they are separated then the birdsong, apparently, stops - as it is no longer mentioned in the scene. The significance of the lark and the nightingale is the reference to dark and light, which represent good and evil, and their fight to decide which one it is could represent to tussle Juliet will have between free-will or fate. Also, good and evil are subverted, as the light (good) is seen as bad by the couple as it means the coming of the day and therefore the end of their time together.
The Nurse enters just as Juliet has realised Romeo’s danger and is sending him away. Just before the Nurse enters Juliet finishes talking ‘O now be gone, more light and light it grows’, and Romeo has just enough time to say one line ‘More light and light, more dark and dark our woes’. These two lines are a rhyming couplet and this shows the end of the romance in this section of the play as the Nurse has arrived. So, the impact of the Nurse’s arrival breaks up the romance in the room and the play at that point. The fact that she does not just arrive, she arrives ‘hastily’ shows that it was a sudden cut of love, but also that it is the end of the highly poetic part, which was going quite fast. The relationship is seen to end – or be finally thrown to fate – when Romeo actually leaves, where there is another rhyming couplet. The rhyming couplet is significant, due to Shakespeare’s other use of it, at the end of his sonnet poems, sonnets usually represent and talk about love. So, the rhyming couplet is important because it is the end of love in those poems and Shakespeare has applied the same technique here to signify the end, as Romeo and Juliet are separating.
The mood when Lady Capulet enters changes dramatically; when Romeo and Juliet were alone it was very romantic and the love was very strong, the Nurse entered and the mood changed to being more panicky and fearing about what could happen to Romeo. Then, when Lady Capulet enters the mood becomes very sad and sombre. Lady Capulet ‘enters below’ which shows that she is like the devil coming up form hell and to Juliet the sombreness is due to the loss of Romeo, however, when Lady Capulet comes in, she assumes that Juliet is grieving her cousin, Tybalt, and his death, ‘Evermore weeping for your cousin’s death?’ This is the beginning of a section of the play where almost everything has a double meaning and both mother a daughter are basically having their own conversations about different matters. ‘Feeling so the loss, I cannot choose but ever weep the friend’ is what Juliet says, this is her replying to her mother and Juliet is again talking about Romeo whilst her mother is talking about Tybalt. Juliet mentions how fate is against them when she says ‘…, I cannot choose…’ which shows that if she could choose then she would far prefer to be with Romeo, rather than her mother at that moment, showing the rift between mother and daughter in this section of the scene. The very careful placement of punctuation in this section of the scene helps the confusion, because it can seem sometimes that Juliet or Lady Capulet have finished what they are saying, when actually they still have more to say. Because of the pauses the other character assumes that that it is the end and it can seem that they are then talking about something else, hence the confusion after certain lines. This dramatic device, caesura (‘Who is’t that calls? It is my lady mother. Is she not down so late, or up so early? What unaccustomed cause procures her hither?’), is used later in the scene too, but to a much different effect.
Many misunderstandings in this section between Lady Capulet and her daughter prompt many mood changes. Juliet and Lady Capulet are in full swing, talking about the loss of Romeo and the death of Tybalt respectively when Lady Capulet surprises her daughter with the news that she is due to be married to Paris on the next, coming Thursday, ‘Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn, The gallant, young and noble gentleman, The County Paris at Saint Peter’s Church’. This is supposed to be a good change of mood, from being very sad and sombre to being upbeat and happy about the marriage, but all this does is make Juliet sadder. This in turn makes Lady Capulet angry at Juliet not taking the news well. Lady Capulet and Juliet up till that point had been getting on quite well, due to some double meanings they had believed that each understood what the other was saying. For example, when Lady Capulet is talking about Romeo and says that ‘…he shall soon keep Tybalt company; and I hope thou wilt be satisfied’ Juliet replies, in a way that at first sounds like it is agreeing with her mother, but with a closer look infers otherwise: ‘Indeed I shall never be satisfied, With Romeo, till I behold him – dead, Is my poor heart…’ This shows that her heart is ‘dead’ until she ‘beholds’ Romeo, but her mother sees it that Juliet will not be satisfied until she has the dead body of Romeo in her arms, but this can be inferred as a foreshadowing of what is to come, when she will be holding Romeo, dead, in her arms. This quotation is a prime example of the device mentioned earlier – caesura, as the end of the line and the punctuation are placed in different positions; causing two, different, possible sentences. This is the general mood of this play – both Juliet and Lady Capulet are confused, but believe that the other understands them. The love between these two characters relies on the fact that they don’t always understand each other, which shows that the love between mother and daughter, that should be strongest, is not very strong.
Capulet enters just after Juliet has found out about the plan for her to be married to Paris and is upset, because all she wants is to be with Romeo, which she knows now will not be possible. ‘How now, a conduit, girl? What, still in tears?’ is what Capulet first says to Juliet. Following this he acts like any father would and says how she should not be put through this trauma (talking about Tybalt) and how she is and always has been vulnerable and weak, but it is not her fault. After asking Lady Capulet whether she has told Juliet about the marriage, Lady Capulet replies, ‘Ay, sir, but she will none, she gives us thanks. I would the fool were married to her grave’. This would not be pleasing to Capulet, as he will probably feel that Juliet is being disrespectful towards him. Capulet shows this displeasure by telling her ‘’Proud’, and ‘I thank you’, and ‘I thank you not’, And yet ‘not proud’, mistress minion, you?’, using ‘mistress minion’ is him saying that she is a woman, but of dubious morality, which would be very insulting. Juliet replies to this with ‘Not proud you have, but thankful you have: Proud I can never be of what I hate, But thankful even for hate that is meant love.’ She is implying by this that she is pleased that her father has gone to this trouble for her, but she doesn’t want to marry Paris, and believes it would be wrong for her to accept an offer that she doesn’t want, because there could be someone else who could take up on the offer who actually wants it.
Capulet is enraged after only a few lines from other characters, showing his easily changed and unpredictable mood. Capulet is very harsh to Juliet each time he talks for a while, calling her various names and insulting her, due to her not wanting to marry Paris. ‘My fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us blest That God had lent us but this only child’ this has violent imagery at the beginning, showing that when he does get angry he gets very angry. He refers to his wife as ‘Wife’ rather than her name, showing how they were living in a patriarchal society and sometimes women were only seen as the possession of men, therefore not important. He talks of how God only ‘lent’ them ‘but this only child’ showing that he believes she is a disappointment to him and his name, also it infers that maybe he wishes he had another child, probably a male who would be able to uphold the honour connected to the name of ‘Capulet’ better than Juliet is, in his eyes. This shows a perspective of love that Capulet holds; he loves Juliet deeply, until she does not abide by his standards and rules. Later he calls her a ‘curse’ which links into when Mercutio was killed as his last words were ‘A curse on both your houses!’ which shows that the play’s story is fate and free-will has not been a part.
During this section of the scene Juliet uses iambic pentameter for a while, so does Capulet, but as Capulet gets angrier and Juliet gets more upset the iambic pentameter breaks down – this infers the loss of love in the family. Capulet is very selfish in this part of the scene, because all he really wants is for Juliet to uphold the family name and also gain him connections in the world. He shows this in his tirade when he says ‘…having provided; A gentleman of noble parentage’ which shows that he did not care if the man he had chosen wasn’t very nice and would abuse her, but at least he has good parentage and, therefore, connections within the world. The anger is represented, particularly in this quotation by the fact that there is use of caesura, which breaks up the lines frequently and not methodically, showing his rage is so sudden, that what he is saying, and how it is said is un-planned.
Juliet and the Nurse are left on their own at the end with Lord and Lady Capulet having left. Juliet is looking for comfort from the Nurse as she feels that her parents have treated her very unfairly. She mentions her religion a few times ‘My husband is on earth, my faith is in heaven; How shall that faith return again on earth, Unless that husband send it me from heaven; By leaving earth.’ This shows that she doesn’t want to marry twice and go against her religion, but she feels that if she does not betray her religion then she may find that the only way to keep her husband will be by talking to him in heaven because her family will probably kill him rather than let her be with him and bring shame to the family name. Juliet is looking for comfort from the Nurse, thinking that she can change it all – as a child would think of a mother. But the Nurse is blunt with her, telling that she cannot do anything and Juliet should abide by her parents wishes – as a mother with experience of the realities of life and how to cope with it best. Juliet then acts as a child would and just goes off into her own world and broods; this dramatic device shows the way that there is a role reversal between the Nurse and Lady Capulet. The role reversal shows Nurse as the maternal figure, looking after and bringing up Juliet, whilst Lady Capulet is just a messenger who has just told Juliet the ‘joyful’ news of her imminent marriage. Though the Nurse does not say what Juliet expects, she helps her in the long run as she brings realistic ideas to Juliet, rather than allowing her to fantasise again.
The Nurse tries to give Juliet advice, but ends up making Juliet upset, because the Nurse suggests to Juliet that, in the end, the best way to get out of the situation she is in, is to just marry Paris and forget about Romeo. ‘I think is best you married with the County. O, he’s a lovely gentleman! Romeo’s a dishclout to him.’ Juliet is completely disbelieving of what the Nurse has said and just says, incredulously ‘Speak’st thou from thy heart’. The Nurse then replies by saying that she speaks from her heart and soul, Juliet then just says ‘Amen’, because by now she is just listening to her religion and not the Nurse because the Nurse has betrayed her so badly. This shows that religion is both a help and a hindrance to Juliet, as it is her religion that prevents her just having two husbands, but it is also her religion that keeps her protected from what is suggested by that Nurse.
Juliet then is very sarcastic and says to the Nurse ‘Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much’ and announces that the Nurse can leave to go and tell her parents that she has gone to the church to make a confession. The Nurse leaves and Juliet looks after her and says ‘Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend! It is more sin to wish me thus forsworn…’ this is just Juliet cursing the Nurse as she is just calling her a witch and the devil, however she has gone back to using Iambic Pentameter, which means that she is now able to just sit and think about the love her and Romeo share. The last word that Juliet says in the scene is ‘die’, which is a foreshadowing of what is to come.
This scene is the pivotal point in the play, from where Romeo and Juliet were just thinking of the time they spend together and not caring about much else in the world, to when Juliet is left alone, having to think about how she is going to sort out her life, because she doesn’t want to betray her religion, but then she doesn’t want to betray Romeo either. The mood changes throughout; Shakespeare depicts a romantic scene at the beginning, using birdsong and iambic pentameter to enforce it. Juliet is saddened by the swift goodbye she had to say to Romeo and then is saddened even more by her mother announcing the marriage. Following her father insulting every inch of her she finds out that actually the Nurse has turned against her and she is now left alone in the world with a big dilemma. She is forced to turn to her religion, as everyone else she trusts has deserted her. As the scene pans out, the birdsong disappears and when Capulet is at his full anger the iambic pentameter leaves the scene, showing how the scene has gone from love and happiness to sadness and despair for Juliet. Her free-will has been quashed and she is going to have to let the fates pan out her future.
