“Romeo and Juliet”Points24/10/18
Find an important part/scene/speech/line in the play and make a point around it.
Juliet’s fears as she struggles to take Lawrence’s potion are clear and real. She conjures the ghost of “the mangled Tybalt from his shroud” and drinks, as much to escape this horrid image, as to be with Romeo. It is here as much as anywhere else that we see the vulnerability of Juliet and remember her tender years. Romeo’s reaction to the news of Juliet’s death is strange. He almost seems to expect it. Within seconds he is putting a pre-arranged plan into action. His speech seems eerily matter-of-fact: “Well Juliet, I will lie with thee tonight” before casually recalling a poor apothecary whom he will be able to force to sell him poison. Later in the vault, with Paris slain at his feet, the beauty of Juliet does bring out the most sincere of Romeo’s language, but even at the last, he cannot resist a self-indulgent metaphor:
“and lips, O you,
The doors of breath”,
and a further appeal to the poison, like a stormy sea, to
“at once run on
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark.”
Romeo’s love for Juliet is not in doubt but his ponderous, self-indulgent language compromises his sincerity. In contrast, Juliet’s “I’ll be brief” and her simple metaphor as she stabs herself
“O happy dagger!
This is thy sheath; there rust and let me die”
strike us as much more moving and much more sincere.
After the trauma of her father’s cruel threats and her mother’s indifference, we might expect Juliet to be entirely distraught. It is at this moment, however, that we see how clear-minded and determined she can be. Her nurse, offering what she believes to be ‘comfort’, advises Juliet to marry Paris bigamously – the most expedient way out of her dilemma. It s here Juliet suddenly realises the full extent of her confidante’s shallowness. She checks her sincerity
“Speak’st thou from thy heart”
and on hearing the nurse confirm her plan, silently resolves to trust her no more:
“Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.”
The underlying irony is that she must now trust Friar Lawrence, who is hardly the impartial confidant she can rely on.
Romeo cannot throw off his weaknesses entirely, yet there is no doubt his meeting with Juliet improves his character. In the Capulet garden his romantic excesses are curbed by her insistence on a genuine confirmation of love from him, not an empty promise or oath. She cites marriage as the only ‘honourable’ promise, and Romeo, to his credit, does not hesitate to accept. He is also mellow enough to tolerate both Mercutio and Lawrence’s gentle mockery, and, later with Juliet, accept her light criticism of his flattery:
“Conceit, more rich in matter than in words
Brags of his substance, not of ornament”. (II 6 ll.30-1)
He does his very best to acquiesce to Tybalt, shocking Mercutio by his “calm, dishonourable, vile submission”, before Fate plays its cruel part when Tybalt’s cowardice and Romeo’s desire for peace combine to finish Mercutio. Now enraged, Romeo forgets Juliet and avenges his friend, with tragic consequences. It is only in the final scene when, reminded of the true beauty of Juliet, Romeo finally displays some true nobility which allows us at least partly to judge him a fit partner for Juliet.
Aim of this paragraph – to show how difficult it was for Juliet to take the potion without being drawn into too much plot summarising.
Act Four is crucial for Juliet. With Romeo banished and her father demanding she marry Paris, she has no-one to turn to except Friar Lawrence. His plan is desperate. She must take a sleeping potion to appear dead so that Romeo can sneak into Verona and spirit her away. Juliet
“shall stiff and stark and cold appear like death”
which is harrowing for such a young girl, so Lawrence goes on to offer the benefit:
“thou shalt continue two and forty hours and then awake as from a pleasant sleep.”
Juliet, however, is far too imaginative to be anything other than terrified at the prospect of lying helplessly in the vault surrounded by death, especially when she imagines she might
“wake, .. environ’d with all these hideous fears
And madly pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud,
And in this rage, with some great kinsman’s bone
As with a club, dash out my desperate brains”.
Despite her nightmares, for Romeo she will risk the dangers.
What are the consequences of her decision? Be brief.
As we suspected, Juliet’s courage was in vain. The 42 hours was tragically seconds too long for Romeo to see her awake. Lawrence’s plan had failed and his panicky solution that Juliet run with him to hide among nuns is treated by her with contempt. She has no hesitation, like Romeo, in taking her life:
“Then I’ll be brief. O happy dagger, there is thy sheath”.
Conclusion
Although we knew this romance would end in tragedy, we would surely not suspect Shakespeare could be so cruel with us and with his two protagonists to make all suffer right up to the end. Juliet showed amazing courage and determination to be with Romeo at all costs and effectively sacrificed her young life for love. She had been abandoned by all who should have supported her, her parents, nurse and holy Friar, and because of this, the dignity of her death allowed us to appreciate her fine qualities even more.
Romeo’s sense of melodrama is easily provoked. With Rosaline he ensures he looks sad and alone enough to be spied and pitied. He responds to Juliet’s genuine concerns for his safety in her garden by casually dismissing his life’s worth:
“My life were better ended by their hate
Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.”
Hearing the judgement that he be banished, Romeo is far from relieved:
“Ha! banishment? be merciful, say death.”
When the nurse tells him that Juliet cries at the mention of his name, again his reaction is predictably melodramatic:
“tell me (where in my heart my name lives)
that I may sack the hateful mansion.”
Again Romeo offers to
“let me be ta’en, let me be put to death”
rather than part with Juliet, and, had he known this would be their last time together, perhaps he would this time have carried out his suicidal threat. Balthasar’s tragic news of Juliet’s death elicits an immediate suicidal response:
“let me have a dram of poison that ..
the life-weary taker may fall dead”.
And finally, when he comes to Juliet’s tomb, his mind is saturated with death, describing the place as
“thou womb of death, gorged with the dearest morsel of earth”
and offering himself to it, to
“cram thee with more food”.
His whole being is now consumed with desperation to die, that he threatens Balthasar if he return, slays Paris in his rage and ultimately, after much ironic wonderment at Juliet’s freshness and lifelikeness,
“seals with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death.”
He had often cited suicide in a melodramatic vein; now he had the guts to go through with it, it would prove the ultimate tragic irony as Juliet slowly awoke.