In section two of Act III, Scene V starts with Lady Capulet entering. This causes tension for the audience because they know that Lady Capulet will ask Juliet to marry Paris. In Elizabethan times this would be common and the daughters would be expected to comply. Lady Capulet mistakes Juliet’s words and tears. She thinks that Juliet is crying because of Tybalt's death but really she is crying about Romeo leaving. She says: “Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss”
She is talking about Romeo but Lady Capulet thinks she is talking about Tybalt. Lady Capulet tells Juliet about the marriage and Juliet does not have a good reaction, she starts screaming at Lady Capulet. As we have seen, Lady Capulet and Juliet do not have a very good relationship and Lady Capulet acts coldly towards her daughter. The audience would feel very sympathetic towards Juliet because they would realise that she has no-one to turn to.
Lord Capulet and the Nurse enter; Lord Capulet seems to care a vast amount for the welfare of Juliet, except for when she refused to marry Paris. He also creates a lot of drama throughout the play with his strong and dramatic language, for example, “Speak not, reply not, do not answer me; my fingers itch”.
and the way he uses this type of language shows us that he is the man of the house. He also seemed to have two personalities depending on the atmosphere at the time. He told Juliet that she would marry Paris, “The County Paris, at Saint Peters church, shall happily make thee there a joyful bride”
and when Juliet refuses, Lord Capulet’s mood changes dramatically because he is the man of the house and expects Juliet to do what she is told, this made this part of the play more dramatic and exciting. Lord Capulet uses his strong language to insult Juliet, he said, “Hang thee, young baggage, disobedient wretch!”
this showed Lord Capulet’s superiority over Juliet. At first, he seemed as though he cared about Juliet while she was crying, but when she refused to marry Paris his anger became uncontrollable. This shows contrast to his temper when he found out that Romeo was at the feast when he was not even invited, and stopped Tybalt making a scene because of the different family names they had. In this part of the play, he seemed very calm because he didn’t want any trouble at the feast.
There is dramatic irony when Lady Capulet says: “I would the fool were married to her grave”
She will later regret this as Juliet does die. The nurse try’s to step in but Lord Capulet is just sarcastic and nasty towards her. Although the nurse had looked after Juliet for many years, and the relationship they shared after years of being together, tension is created in the scene when the nurse has a change of heart towards Juliet. Throughout this scene, the nurse rapidly changes her mind of Juliet’s marriage with Romeo, and urges her to marry County Paris, as this would please her parents, stop any trouble from brewing and also cover the nurses back from knowing about the secret marriage between Romeo and Juliet. This is shown when the nurse says, “I think it is best you married the county”.
Juliet turns to her mother in desperation when her father shouts and gets angry with her for not wanting to marry Paris. She says to her mother,
“Is there no pity sitting in the clouds, that sees into the bottom of my grief? O sweet my mother, cast me not away! Delay this marriage for a month, a
week; or if you do not, make the bridal bed in that dim monument where Tybalt lies”,
This shows her devotion to Romeo to the audience but stubbornness to her parents. This part of the scene is very dramatic because of the pace, and how tempers rise between members of the family.
Drama is also added when Lady Capulet says,
“We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not. Then weep no more. I’ll send to one in Mantua”,
The scene ends very dramatically with Juliet’s mother and nurse leaving her and Juliet contemplating suicide. Juliet asks the nurse to “comfort” her, but she is not clever enough to do it well. She says that Romeo is a “dish clout” to Paris and says that Romeo’s as good as dead. This upsets Juliet even more. The nurse says; in effect curse my heart if I am wrong. Juliet says “Amen”,
this leads to the nurse leaving Juliet. In the brief soliloquy at the end the last words Juliet says are: “If all else fail, myself have power to die”
Juliet goes through a lot of emotions during this scene from beginning to end. From love, to tears, to anger, to suicidal, most of the emotions are because of Romeo. When he's there, she loves him and she's very happy that he is there and that he’s safe. Next she gets upset, because she fears that he will be killed if he leaves her. She bursts into tears when he leaves, and her family thinks that she is grieving for her cousin, which makes her more upset, as it was her Romeo who killed her cousin. Next she gets even more upset, as her father tells her that she has to marry Paris, but she is so scared of her father that she can’t tell him that she is already married to Romeo, so she just says that she is not ready. Near the end of the argument, she is angry and very upset, because her father is threatening to disown her. By the end, she can’t even trust the nurse, one of the closest people to her. Finally, she is so upset, that she considers suicide just to get out of marrying Paris, and so she wouldn’t have to worry about her father, mother, nurse, family or Romeo.
This leaves the scene on a cliff-hanger and will create a lot of tension. It is one of the most upsetting and depressing scenes of the whole play and Shakespeare uses a wide range of language to create pathos and poignancy so that the audience are able to sympathise with the characters.