Vocab/Key Terms Flashcards
Aside (definition, example)
DEF: One character sharing his/her feelings with the audience
3.5: Juliet says that Romeo is far from a villain, aside, while pretending to hate him: “(aside) Villain and he be many miles asunder.”
Juliet says this out loud to herself and the audience
Oxymoron (def, ex)
DEF: Contradictory words
3.2: Juliet uses oxymorons to describe Romeo because she’s conflicted: she loves him, but he killed Tybalt
- Juliet calls Romeo a “serpent heart”
- “Beautiful tyrant”
- “Fiend angelical”
- “Honorable villain”
5.2: Friar Laurence describes Juliet as a “living corpse”
“Poor living corpse, closed in a dead man’s tomb!”
Plant/ Nature Imagery: ex
5.3: Romeo, thinking Juliet died, says that death has sucked the honey out of Juliet’s breath like a bee
Juliet IS the flower
“Death hath sucked the honey of thy breath, hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.”
Impetuous: ex
Romeo’s fatal flaw
3.1: Romeo kills Tybalt to avenge Mercutio’s death; if he didn’t the law would’ve killed Tybalt anyway and he wouldn’t have been been banished
Fate/ Fortune: ex
3.1: After killing Tybalt, Romeo blames fate: “O, I am fortune’s fool!”
5.1: Romeo tells fate he’s defying it by killing himself:
“Then I defy you, stars!” (When hearing Juliet is “dead”)
“And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars” (Before drinking the poison)
5.2: Friar Laurence blames fate for his letter not being sent to Romeo
“Unhappy fortune!”
Doesn’t take accountability/blame himself
5.3: Romeo blames fortune for killing Paris when really HE did
“One writ with me in sour misfortune’s book!”
Foreshadowing: ex
5.1 (Beginning): Romeo dreams that Juliet finds him dead, kisses him, and he becomes an emperor
It happens the opposite way around: he finds Juliet dead
Antithesis: def, ex
DEF: Opposite words that balance one another in a sentence
3.2: Juliet says: “O serpent heart, hid with a flow’ring face!”
Rhyming couplet: def
DEF: Two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme
Personification: ex
3.2: Juliet personifies the night:
Telling the night to come and bring her Romeo
“Come, civil night, thou sober-suited matron all in black”
5.3: Romeo personifies death, calling it a monster
“Shall I believe that unsubstantial Death is amorous, and that the lean abhorred monster keeps thee here in dark to be his paramour?”
Romeo is depressed that Juliet is dead
Plague
A plague struck Mantua and got Friar John quarantined. Nobody sent Friar Laurence’s letter to Romeo because of the plague.
Plan/ “Revised” Plan: Romeo’s AND Juliet’s
Friar Laurence made a plan to help Romeo return from his exile:
- Nurse tells Juliet that Romeo is coming to visit her, he comforts Juliet
- Romeo sneaks out early in the morning to Mantua
- Friar Laurence will stay in touch w/ Romeo through the mail (letters)
On Friar Laurence’s part:
- Announce that Romeo is Juliet’s husband
- Make sure the people support Romeo
- Try to convince the Prince to let Romeo come back
- Once he returns he’ll be 200,000 times more happy
Friar Laurence also thought of the plan involving the potion to put Juliet to rest: get her out of her marriage to Paris and bring Romeo to her
- Juliet goes home, acts happy, and accepts her marriage to Paris
- Get the Nurse away from her room
- Drink a vial of potion in bed
- Wake up in 42 hours in the Capulet tomb
- Friar will send letters to Romeo in the meantime
- Romeo will arrive at the tomb from Mantua and retrieve Juliet
How tragedy affects characters
Capulets: lost Juliet and Tybalt
Montagues: lost Romeo and Lady Montague
Prince/royals: lost Mercutio and Paris
Double Entendre: def, ex
DEF: a phrase that can be interpreted in two different ways, a line with a double meaning
3.5: Juliet words her responses to her mother so that it seems like she’s being loyal to her family, when really she’s loyal to Romeo
“Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss.” → She lot Tybalt/ she lost Romeo from his exile
“Feeling so the loss, I cannot choose but ever weep the friend.” → Friend = Tybalt/Romeo
“Indeed, I never shall be satisfied
With Romeo, till I behold him—dead—
Is my poor heart for a kinsman vexed” → her heart/Romeo is dead
Light/ Dark Motif: ex
3.2: While waiting for Romeo, Juliet idealizes him
Romeo = the stars; Juliet = the Sun
Romeo lights up the heavens
They are the lights to each other’s darkness
5.3: Romeo calls Juliet a lantern in her grave
“A grave? O, no a lanthorn”
Juliet lights up the mausoleum: she is the light, fire, candle
Similie/ Metaphor: ex
5.3: Romeo says implies a metaphor: death is a bee and Juliet is a flower
“Death hath sucked the honey of thy breath, hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.”
Climax
When Romeo kills Tybalt
(NOT Tybalt killing Mercutio)
The play moves towards the resolution
Now there’s no way Romeo and Juliet can happily be together:
Romeo isn’t legally allowed to go to Verona and see Juliet
The Capulets hate him, can’t amend bridge
Hyperbole: def, ex
DEF: an exaggeration
3.2: Juliet exaggerates how awful Romeo’s exile is:
“That one word ‘banished,’ hath slain ten thousand Tybalts.” → Romeo’s exile is 10,000x worse than Tybalt’s death
“To speak that word is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet, all slain, all dead.” → HUGE thing to say! Romeo’s exile = her family dead
“There is no end, no limit, measure, bound, in that word’s death; no words can that woe sound.”
3.3: Friar Laurence explains his plan to undo Romeo’s exile to him. He exaggerates how happy Romeo will be when he returns:
“And call thee back with twenty hundred thousand times more joy than thou went’st forth in lamentation.”
Loss of Support System
When Juliet refuses to marry Paris, Lady Capulet, then Lord Capulet, then the Nurse all turned away from her
- Lord Capulet is very mad. He degrades Juliet to worthless, insults her, and threatens to disown her and punish her with violence.
- Lady Capulet tells Juliet she won’t speak to her anymore; she’s done with her.
- The Nurse dismisses Romeo (changes her mind), calling him a dishcloth compared to Paris.
Juliet’s fears (taking potion)
- The potion doesn’t work → she’ll be married to Paris
- Friar Laurence poisoned the potion bc/ he thinks Juliet is unholy for almost being married to two men (The Friar is trying to kill her)
- Romeo won’t come in time and she’ll suffocate
- She’ll wake up in the vault by herself (afraid of the vault itself)
- The bones of her ancestors
- Bloody Tybalt (Tybalt’s ghost)
- Juliet is already scaring herself, sees Tybalt’s ghost: “Stay, Tybalt, stay!”
- “Loathsome smells”
- “Shrieks like mandrakes”
- She’ll go crazy in there if she wakes up too soon
- NOT afraid that Romeo won’t show up, doesn’t enter her mind
- NOT afraid of death
Pathetic Fallacy: ex
3.1: Benvolio tells Mercutio to leave the streets filled with Capulets bc/ the hot weather makes people’s tempers rise
Play Resolution
Paris and his servant Page arrive at Juliet’s tomb and plans to give her flowers
Romeo and Balthasar arrive just after. Romeo threatens Balthasar to kill him if he disturbs him in the tomb
Paris assumes Romeo is tampering with the Capulet’s bodies
Paris provokes Romeo and they fight. Romeo stabs Paris and he dies
Romeo lays Paris in the Capulet tomb near Juliet and blames fate for his death
Romeo says one last goodbye to Juliet, takes the poison, and dies
Friar Laurence just arrives at the scene, discovers Balthasar, Romeo, and Paris, accompanies Juliet while she wakes up, and flees the scene once he hears the watchmen
The watchmen arrive at the tomb and find Romeo, Paris, and Juliet all dead. They also find Friar Laurence trying to escape and hold him for questioning.
Lord and Lady Capulet arrive first, then Montague, who reports his wife died because of Romeo’s exile
The Friar steps forward to tell the Prince the whole story of Romeo and Juliet. Balthasar and Page both confirm the friar’s story
The Price scorns the families: “All are punished” meaning everyone has suffered and lost loved ones
Capulet and Montague make up and vow to build gold statues of each other’s child. The Prince says he’ll decide the punishments later
