Juliet Flashcards
Rough plan
Opening - measured, insightful, ostensibly obedient
Middle - besotted with Romeo, love
End - reckless, impulsive
Opening quotes
‘It is an honour that I dream not of’
‘I’ll look to like, if looking liking move;’
‘O Romeo Romeo wherefore art thou Romeo?’
Opening - intentions
Shakespeare may be criticising how children are taught to solely base their relationship with their parents on respect and not love. As a result, Juliet may not feel comfortable to express her feelings, which contributes to her tragic downfall.
Juliet interacts with Nurse first showing distance with Lady Capulet
In a Patriarchal society where women are seen as inferior, Shakespeare is demonstrating their intellect and wit.
Middle - quotes
‘sin’, ‘pilgrim’, ‘holy’, ‘saint’
‘What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet;’
‘I’ll to my wedding bed ‘ & ‘take my maidenhead’
Middle - intentions
Through Juliet, Shakespeare demonstrates the folly of youth, which is that they are too hasty in love and shows it to contribute to their inevitable downfall
Shakespeare demonstrates love to supersede hate in all forms
End - quotes
‘Indeed I shall never be satisfied/ With Romeo, till I behold him—dead—/is my poor heart’
‘To help me sort such needful ornaments/ As you think fit to furnish me tomorrow?’
‘Then I’ll be brief. O happy dagger/ This is thy sheath’
End - intentions
Shakespeare uses Juliet’s death to remind the audience of the tragic onsequences of feuds and how they might be detrimental to those who are blameless. He shows hate to be counterproductive and love to always prevail
Shows the effects of hasty, rash love and the folly of the youth
Shakespeare shows fate to be triumphant and powerful, as the words of the prologue are echoed at the end of the play creating a cyclical structure. However, he also makes it seem didactic, correcting a long lasting feud
Her wisdom despite age - young vs old theme
‘It is an honour that I dream not of’
- ostensibly seems compliant through noun ‘honour’
- speaks in a way that does not disagree with her parents but at the same time does not disagree with her own opinion
- understands patriarchal expectations of women to marry young for transactional purposes
‘I’ll look to like, if looking liking move;’
- again seems to have respect for family duty
- short speech demonstrates obedience as she understands her role
- dramatic irony created in prologue
- iambic pentameter paired with assonance and alliteration makes her sound almost playful indicating control over language and perhaps foreshadowing rebellion
‘O Romeo Romeo wherefore art thou Romeo?’
- although very young she understands that the family conflict means that her and Romeo cannot be together
- repetition of ‘Romeo’ thrice emphasises her strong desire, which is held back by her parent’s feud
- knowledge that she cannot convey this desire to her parents
- her wiseness juxtaposes with the futility of the feud
‘sin’, ‘pilgrim’, ‘holy’, ‘saint’
- first interaction is filled with religious imagery, juxtaposing Romeo’s lustful love for Rosaline
- they exchange in a Shakespearean Sonnet symbolising how they are perfect for each other
- only by joining their words can the sonnet be formed which represents how they can only find completion when together
- Juliet leads on from Romeo’s rhymes suggesting that although she understands the flaws of the patriarchy, it is still deeply engrained in society
- perhaps she’s so besotted with him, she wants to follow him
‘What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet;’
- willing to forego her lineage for Romeo
- exemplifies her to be impulsive and fervid in a way she loves
- pure love should transcend all social constructs such as the feud
- insightful recognising futility of the conflict which older generation cannot recognised
‘I’ll to my wedding bed ‘ & ‘take my maidenhead’
- after having inner conflict towards Romeo after he kills Tybalt, love ultimately is paramount and hatred counterproductive
- rhyming couplet combined with imagery of love evokes emphasis of love superseding hate
- a woman’s virginity was highly valued and her willingness to offer this demonstrates trust and vulnerability
- this defeat of hate over love foreshadows the play’s end where love also prevails
‘Indeed I shall never be satisfied/ With Romeo, till I behold him—dead—/is my poor heart
- as seen in Act 1, she appeases her mother’s opinions whilst expressing her own, but in a much more sly manner
- cunning as ostensibly this infers she hates Romeo which satisfies her mother, maintaining echo chamber
- simultaneously saying she won’t be happy without him
- perhaps start of her impulsivity as she foregoes her lineage for love
‘To help me sort such needful ornaments/ As you think fit to furnish me tomorrow?’
- abandoning her family by lying about wedding
- noun ‘ornament’ emphasises how women are viewed as a vessel for sex in the patriarchal society, simply to be possessed
- ‘furnish’ emphasises dehumanising approach of women as objects
- her comments sound almost obsequious which adds to ridicule
- humour example to audience which conveys important message
‘Then I’ll be brief. O happy dagger/ This is thy sheath’
- reckless, impulsive decision to perform suicide as she is ‘brief’ and does not think about her family
- oxymoron demonstrates how she can only find peace and solace in death, united with her lover
- personifies dagger, perhaps seeing at as a means to carry her to Romeo
- her body is shown to be the ‘sheath’ demonstrating how they are complementary to each other
- love and violence inextricably linked
- spends whole play speaking at length, yet when it comes to death is brief
- dramatic view of 3 dead bodies heightens tragedy demonstrating futility of war on those hardly involved
Overview
Shakespeare uses the character of Juliet as a vehicle to bring attention to the dangers of love, especially when pursued with such haste. Initially, Juliet adopts a measured approach which exceeds that of her age. She appears insightful in her observations, maintaining the echo chamber of her parents but quickly becomes besotted by Romeo which results in her increasingly reckless behaviour
