Paris Flashcards
- Asking to marry Juliet (A1S2)
“But now, my lord, what say you to my suit?”
• What: Formally asks Capulet for Juliet’s hand
• How:
• Metaphor of “suit” = legal, contractual view of love
• Formal tone = marriage as transaction, not affection
• Absence of Juliet’s name = objectification
• Repetition of possessive structure = entitlement
• Why: Highlights power imbalance → love as patriarchal arrangement
• Themes: love/relationships, social divide, gender, honour
- Capulet’s response about Juliet’s age (A1S2)
“Younger than she are happy mothers made.”
• What: Argues Juliet is old enough for marriage
• How:
• Comparative structure → reduces Juliet to statistic
• Irony → “happy” will soon mean tragedy
• Objectifies youth → value = fertility
• Alliteration (“happy…mothers…made”) = superficial charm
• Why: Reveals societal obsession with early marriage, legacy, and control
• Themes: gender, social divide, love/relationships, generational divide
- Talking about Juliet’s grief (A3S4)
“These times of woe afford no time to woo.”
• What: Says it’s inappropriate to court Juliet while she’s grieving
• How:
• Alliteration (“woe” / “woo”) = poetic irony
• Play on romantic vs tragic diction → blurred tone
• Ironic: presses marriage despite this statement
• Contrasts true love with social formality
• Why: Paris is well-meaning but blind → romantic norms override emotional reality
• Themes: time, gender, appearance vs reality, love/relationships
- Accepting sudden marriage proposal from Capulet (A3S4)
“I would that Thursday were tomorrow.”
• What: Expresses eagerness to marry Juliet
• How:
• Impatience = symbolic of entitlement
• Wishes time away → desire overrides emotional readiness
• Irony → doesn’t know Juliet has other plans
• Childlike tone → naïve optimism
• Why: Contrast to Romeo’s emotional complexity → Paris = surface-level love
• Themes: love/relationships, time, impulsiveness, appearance vs reality
- At Juliet’s “deathbed” (A4S5)
“Beguiled, divorced, wronged, spited, slain.”
• What: Laments Juliet’s “betrayal” through death
• How:
• Asyndetic list → overwhelmed by perceived injustice
• Legalistic diction = love as broken contract
• Victim language → dramatic self-centred grief
• Alliteration (“spited…slain”) = mourning becomes performance
• Why: Highlights Paris’s perception of love as entitlement, not mutual connection
• Themes: love/relationships, death, appearance vs reality
- Preparing for wedding (A4S1)
“Happily met, my lady and my wife.”
• What: Greets Juliet possessively at Friar’s cell
• How:
• Irony → audience knows she is already married
• Triadic phrasing → “lady…wife” = idealised female roles
• Juxtaposition of politeness and ownership
• Tone = confident, but false sense of security
• Why: Appearance vs reality crystallised → Paris = outsider to emotional truth
• Themes: appearance vs reality, love/relationships, fate, gender
- Reacting to Juliet’s coldness (A4S1)
“Thy face is mine, and thou hast slandered it.”
• What: Claims ownership of Juliet’s beauty
• How:
• Metaphor of face as property → control, not intimacy
• Irony → “slandered” implies Juliet dishonours his possession
• Use of possessive pronouns = sense of entitlement
• Power imbalance exposed through language
• Why: Paris reveals disturbing view of love → based on ownership, not empathy
• Themes: gender, love/relationships, appearance vs reality, honour
- At Juliet’s tomb, mourning (A5S3)
“Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew.”
• What: Lays flowers at Juliet’s tomb, calls her his bride
• How:
• Floral metaphor → romanticised death
• Irony → she never truly became his bride
• Euphemistic imagery = sanitises grief
• Symbolism → burial becomes wedding
• Why: Tragic misunderstanding → Paris mourns a fantasy, not the truth
• Themes: death, love/relationships, appearance vs reality, fate
- Seeing Romeo at tomb (A5S3)
“This is that banished haughty Montague / That murdered my love’s cousin.”
• What: Confronts Romeo, fuelled by anger
• How:
• Tricolon of blame = “banished…haughty…murdered”
• Dramatic irony → doesn’t know Romeo = Juliet’s husband
• Repetition of accusation → emotion over clarity
• Tone = formal, yet fierce
• Why: Paris becomes part of the tragic web → blinded by partial knowledge
• Themes: conflict, death, fate, appearance vs reality
- Challenging Romeo (A5S3)
“Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee.”
• What: Attempts to arrest Romeo at Juliet’s tomb
• How:
• Legal diction → turns love into crime
• Harsh fricatives (“villain”, “apprehend”) = bitterness
• Ironic reversal → Paris wrongly acts as law
• Juxtaposition → justice vs emotion
• Why: Even honourable intentions cause harm when based on illusion
• Themes: honour, fate, individuals vs society, conflict
- Paris dying (A5S3)
“If thou be merciful, / Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.”
• What: Asks to be buried beside Juliet
• How:
• Irony → thinks of her as wife, unaware of truth
• Euphemistic tone → “merciful” = passive surrender
• Desperate romanticism = echoes Romeo’s passion
• Tone shift → entitlement replaced with vulnerability
• Why: At death, Paris finally becomes tragic → mourns something never truly his
• Themes: love/relationships, death, fate, appearance vs reality
- Paris’s death honoured (A5S3)
“We’ll bury him in all the rites of love.” (Prince Escalus)
• What: Paris is honoured despite tragic misunderstanding
• How:
• Religious diction (“rites”) → ritual sanctifies misguided love
• Irony → he is buried for a love that never existed
• Dignity in language = tragic elevation of minor character
• Structural closure → even the unrequited are memorialised
• Why: Reminds audience of collateral damage in tragedy → not just lovers suffer
• Themes: death, love/relationships, honour, fate
