In the second scene we see Juliet, Act 2 Scene 2, her behaviour is very shocking and confusing. She totally contradicts her actions in Act 1, Scene 3, going against what she knows her parents want and seeing Romeo. It is like she is playing on her freedom, doing what she never would have dreamed of doing before. Romeo provides the perfect opportunity for her to do this, so she takes it up and willingly offers herself to him. We now realize Juliet is not as innocent as we thought she was. In Act 1, Scene 3 she shows loyalty and respect for her family but in this scene she seems to totally break this. It seems like the falseness she was portraying in Act 1, Scene 3 has been stripped off and now she is uncovering her true feelings. She starts to admit that she hates being attached to her family and their loyalties and secretly hates it and wants to get out-’Tis thy name that is my enemy. Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. It also seems that as she gets more involved with Romeo she starts to realize the restrictions of being in her family and becomes more and more frustrated-“O be some other name!” She appears very rebellious. I think she is acting like this because maybe she has been thinking a lot about her mother’s idea of marriage and the more she thinks about it the more she realises she doesn’t want to go ahead with it and the more she dislikes her parents and wants to rebel. She has never been in this position before, but now she knows the proposition of marriage is serious, she may realise she has to change and do something to prevent it. She feels so strongly about it that she dives in at the deep end and gets heavily involved with Romeo. She even admits herself that she has been “too fond” A girl in that day would never dream of doing what she had said if they did they would be heavily frowned upon and seen as a disgrace. But Juliet just got involved with Romeo without a second thought. Juliet can be seen as a little too easily led at this point and quite young and naïve for letting herself been drawn into such a dangerous position. She is just at the age of adolescence and at that age, especially in girls, they seem to jump at the chance of any romantic relationship. On the other hand, her actions could not be so rash. You could tell in the first scene we saw Juliet that she was unhappy about marriage but she couldn’t speak out about it. If this was so, she must have been agonizing sub-consciously in her mind for a while about how she could get out of marrying and Romeo seems the perfect excuse to disobey her parents. In this scene, I would direct Juliet leaning over the balcony
desperately, like she wants to escape. I would make her say her words with much meaning and expression in her voice using her hands when she is speaking, especially when she is explaining about her family. I would also act her with a look of frustration and helplessness on her face. When talking to Romeo, I would act her smiling and like
she is all over him. I would do this to show that Juliet is not quite mature but also look at him in that way of happiness because he is providing a passageway of escape for her.
In Act 3, scene 5 you can clearly see more significant changes in Juliet. She has
gone from doing and agreeing with everything that her parents say, to finally taking the courage to tell her mother that she won’t marry Paris. Looking at what Juliet was like in the first scene we saw her, eager to please her mother and very polite, she has changes an awful lot and become a strong and stubborn girl, something you would rarely see in those times. She has gone from a pleasant, always obedient girl to someone who has gained a whole new level of strength and assertiveness, making her quite a character. She puts across her feelings totally to her parents, telling the of her unhappiness, something she would of never have done before-“Is there no pity in the clouds that sees into the bottom of my grief?” She is finally pleading with her parents and telling them just how she is feeling-“Proud can I never be of what I hate”. She argues with her parents terribly, making her look rebellious and very badly behaved-“I will not marry yet, and when I do, I swear it shall be Romeo”. She now seems very certain with the idea that she wants to be with Romeo and her feelings have become so strong that they have swayed and changed her character, making her far more outspoken. This is a very surprising thing to happen in those days, and it demonstrates how truly strong Juliet felt about it to take such action. It seems the affair with Romeo was what changed her the most. The night before she fights with her parents and rebels, she spent a very passionate and intense night with Romeo. From the word they say to each other, they seem like one and can’t be parted-“ I must be gone and live, or stay and die”. Their relationship appears very strong. This could have just enhanced her feelings making her positive that she would do anything to be with him. Her relationship with Romeo could have been a lifetime experience for Juliet, with feelings so intense that she changed completely. I would act Juliet like she is pleading and desperate. I’d want to scream the words out, portraying to the audience how strongly she felt. I would want her body language and actions to show complete unhappiness and they’re to be hysterical tears in her eyes. I would want it to be so dramatized so the audience would really get a feel of what Juliet was experiencing and feeling and so they would realize how hard it must have been for a young girl of that time.
In Act 4, Scene 3 Juliet does the most dramatic thing she has done in the whole play. She has gone to such measures that she doesn’t even know if she will wake up, to be with Romeo. This seems crazy and obscene, but maybe Juliet felt so pushed away by her family that she had to do that. It seems as if Juliet has got too heavily involved with Romeo. It has changed her completely and she has gone so far that she is risking her own life. She is totally sad and helpless in this scene-“My dismal scene I needs must act alone”. The effect Romeo has had on Juliet seems to be extremely powerful. Would Juliet of changed so much if it weren’t for Romeo? It is a hard question to answer because you know that Juliet never wanted to marry Paris. But without Romeo I don’t think she would have taken the initiative to do something about it. The change of character of Juliet is dramatic over such a short period of time and shows how much her family’s decisions turned her against them but also how much of an impact Romeo had on Juliet. I would direct Juliet to look very drained and worn out and confused. I would do this so the audience would see what a tragic and twisted thing has happened.
