Theme: Love/Relationships

Question 1

1. Romeo sees Juliet for the first time (A1S5)

“Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! / For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.” - Romeo

Answer 1

• What: Instant, idealised love

• How:

• Rhetorical question challenges own feelings → internal conflict

• Hyperbolic “true beauty” = idealisation, love as illusion

• Caesura after “Forswear it, sight!” disrupts rhythm = emotional shock

• Lexical field of absolutes (“ne’er”, “true”, “sight”) = intensity of first love

• Elevated, courtly register contrasts earlier sexual puns → signals seriousness

• Why: Love introduced as overpowering and impulsive → foreshadows downfall
• Themes: love/relationships, impulsiveness, appearance vs reality

Question 2

2. Juliet questions Romeo’s intentions (A2S2)

“If that thy bent of love be honourable, / Thy purpose marriage, send me word tomorrow.” - Juliet

Answer 2

• What: Love as contract & commitment

• How:

• Modal verb “if” = cautious control over emotions

• Lexical field of duty (“honourable”, “purpose”, “marriage”) = sincerity over lust

• Juxtaposition of passion with pragmatism → Juliet is emotionally mature

• Balanced syntax mirrors Juliet’s clarity of thought

• Gender inversion: Juliet proposes structure, subverts expectations

• Why: Challenges romantic stereotypes → Juliet as agent of her own love
• Themes: love/relationships, gender, honour

Question 3

3. Friar Laurence agrees to marry them (A2S3)

“For this alliance may so happy prove / To turn your households’ rancour to pure love.” - friar

Answer 3

• What: Love used to end hate

• How:

• Juxtaposition “rancour” vs “pure love” = binary opposition

• Semantic field of diplomacy (“alliance”, “households”) → marriage as political strategy

• Religious diction “pure” → love as redemptive force

• Iambic rhythm = calm logic masks underlying naïveté

• Why: Love viewed as solution to societal problems → but outcome is ironic reversal

• Themes: love/relationships, fate, individuals vs society

Question 4

4. Capulet promises Juliet to Paris (A3S4)

“She shall be married to this noble earl.”

Answer 4

• What: Arranged love imposed by authority

• How:

• Modal “shall” = rigid patriarchal control

• Epithet “noble” = status prioritised over emotion

• Monosyllabic command tone = business-like tone for marriage

• Lexical contrast with Juliet’s emotional language elsewhere

• Why: Highlights transactional love → Juliet denied emotional agency

• Themes: love/relationships, gender, honour

Question 5

5. Parting after their wedding night (A3S5)

“It was the lark, the herald of the morn, / No nightingale.” -Romeo

Answer 5

• What: Love interrupted by time and danger

• How:

• Bird imagery = symbolic time markers → lark (reality), nightingale (desire)

• Metaphorical contrast = clashing of fantasy and fate

• **Personification “herald” = nature as messenger of doom

• Poetic form + enjambment = flow of emotion resisting logic

• Why: Love constrained by real world → poetic bliss haunted by threat

• Themes: love/relationships, time, fate

Question 6

6. Juliet refuses Paris (A3S5)

“He shall not make me there a joyful bride.” -Juliet

Answer 6

• What: Juliet opposes forced love

• How:

• Irony in “joyful” = sarcastic resistance

• Caesura isolates her voice = emotional independence

• **Defiant tone → Juliet breaks gender expectation

• Harsh monosyllables mirror inner strength

• Why: Emergence of Juliet’s autonomy → love = personal, not prescribed

• Character: Juliet

• Themes: love/relationships, gender, honour

Question 7

7. Juliet’s fake death replaces wedding (A4S5)

“Ready to go, but never to return.” - Capulet

Answer 7

• What: Death replaces marriage

• How:

• Antithesis “go” / “return” = irreversibility

• Finality in rhythm = emotional closure masked as tragedy

• Dramatic irony → audience knows the truth

• **Semantic collapse of ritual → wedding becomes funeral

• Why: Society’s control over love leads to inversion of celebration into mourning

• Character: Capulet

• Themes: love/relationships, death, appearance vs reality

Question 8

8. Paris mourning Juliet (A5S3)

“Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew.”

Answer 8

• What: Grief disguised as romance

• How:

• Floral imagery = romantic idealism + death

• **Anaphora “flower…flowers” = obsessive devotion

• **Metaphor “bridal bed” = love distorted into death

• **Ironic structure → Paris never had emotional claim

• Why: Shows how love is idealised → even in fantasy, love is unfulfilled

• Character: Paris

• Themes: love/relationships, death, appearance vs reality

Question 9

9. Prince’s final words (A5S3)

“For never was a story of more woe / Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”

Answer 9

• What: Love story ends in death

• How:

• Rhyming couplet = tragic finality

• Names reversed = Juliet foregrounded in legacy

• **Euphemistic “story” = universal myth of doomed love

• **Tone = sombre epilogue

• Why: Condenses theme into a warning → love + conflict = tragedy

• Character: Prince

• Themes: love/relationships, fate, death