One way that Shakespeare makes us feel sympathetic in this scene is when Lady Capulet says "Evermore weeping for your cousins death?" This shows us Juliet is misunderstood by her mother. This helps Shakespeare into making us feel sorry for her along with the fact that she has just lost her cousin. While Lady Capulet is threatening revenge on Romeo for Tybalt’s death, Juliet has to think fast and mislead her mother so she doesn’t give away her true feelings for Romeo as he is the enemy of her family. Here in the scene, Lady Capulet believes that Juliet is grieving over the death of her cousin Tybalt, but in fact she is crying because of her separation from Romeo. Lady Capulet says that she will avenge Tybalt's death by sending a servant to Mantua to poison him. This also shows a sign of dramatic irony because the audience knows that Juliet doesn’t want Romeo to be killed but Lady Capulet doesn’t.
In Act 3 Scene 5, we feel sorry for Juliet as she says "...Till I behold him -dead- is my poor heart." The word 'poor' makes the readers obliged to feel sorry for her as it makes us feel she is suffering. This phrase can mean she will never be satisfied until her holds the killer of her cousin dead, or will never be satisfied because her heart is set for Romeo. We feel more sympathetic when Lady Capulet breaks the news of Juliet’s marriage to Paris, and Juliet rejects this, her mother passes her onto her father to be yelled at and insulted for refusing to marry Paris. When this happens, the audience feels that she is unwanted and unloved because of what her father says.
This clearly shows the way Lady Capulet feels. She wants nothing to do with Juliet when she says that she doesn’t want to marry Paris. This also shows that she hasn’t had a real motherly relationship with Juliet; the nurse was more of a mother than Lady Capulet. Both lady Capulet and Juliet are unwilling to confront Lord Capulet because of his anger. In this scene, both parents betray Juliet so she turns to the nurse to be comforted. The nurse brought Juliet up and was the one that gave Romeo permission to marry Juliet so Juliet thinks she will help her but instead she tells her to marry Paris.
Juliet's mother and father try to convince her that the marriage they have planned for her to Paris is good news and will make her feel better. However Juliet (and the audience) knows that she is panicking because she's already married to Romeo.
When Lord Capulet is insulting Juliet for refusing to marry the 'young and noble' Paris, he calls her a number of hurtful and spiteful names and tells her that if she does not go to church on Thursday morning to marry Paris, he will drag her to church, similar to how a criminal would be dragged through the streets for doing a crime. He also calls her a 'green-sickness', a 'tallow-face' and 'baggage'. This makes us very sympathetic towards her as we don't expect a father to drag his own daughter through the streets like a prisoner, and to call her spiteful names.
The time this play is similar to the Elizabethan times. Women in the Elizabethan times could not be heirs to their parent’s titles. All titles would pass down to a male member of the family depending on circumstances. This meant that Lord Capulet was very anxious to have a son as Tybalt was dead.
Near to the end, the Nurse changes her mind and advises Juliet to marry Paris; "I think it best you married...O, he's a lovely gentleman!” Juliet feels betrayed and feels like the Nurse is a traitor. This action from the Nurse makes Juliet feel very alone and not understood by anyone in the house. Allot of the play involves things that are said in this scene. After Juliet refuses to marry Paris, she goes to Friar Lawrence as she thinks he is the only person she can rely on since every other adult wants her to marry Paris. Juliet declares that if the Friar does not help her to avoid the marriage her parents have planned for her, she will kill herself, a foreshadowing of what the audience knows will actually happen.
This also further isolates Juliet from any adult who might give her wise guidance. Even her nurse abandons her as she advises Juliet to marry Paris. Juliet feels she has nowhere else to turn other than Friar Lawrence, who then thinks of a plan for Juliet to fake her death to avoid marrying Paris. The end of the act causes both Romeo and Juliet to die.
This scene is also very important because it shows why Juliet has a bad relationship with her mother. When Juliet disagrees with her parent’s wishes for the first time by not wanting to marry Paris, Lady Capulet says: "I would the fool were married to her grave!” here, she is basically saying that she wishes she was dead. Lady Capulet mother’s words then reflect with the story at the end as Juliet actually does die. When Juliet tells her mother that she does not want to marry Paris, Lady Capulet gets very angry and tells her husband about Juliet's 'disobeying them' by not marrying Paris. Capulet gets angry and calls Juliet a 'disobedient wretch' and a 'tallow-face' and 'baggage'.
During this scene, Juliet is sad and shocked that she has to marry Paris since she has just spent her first night with her husband Romeo whereas her mother feels happy that she is getting married to Paris. Lady Capulet changes her mood when she hears that Juliet denied the offer to marry and hurls insults at her. At this point, she feels enraged at Juliet’s behaviour.
In the Baz Luhrmann film of Romeo and Juliet, the director has changed the original setting of Verona in Italy, for a modern Verona Beach in California instead. The part of narrator throughout the tale is shown on a television screen, giving the viewer the idea that the tragic love story is unfolding on the local news and this is more modern compared to the book.
