Parental Restriction In Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet

Daughters and Parental Restriction in Shakespeare

Young sons and daughters take center stage in several of William Shakespeare’s plays, including the tragedies of Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet. However, the treatment of the sons in comparison to daughters differs substantially. Although both are constrained by similar forces, these work to very different extents based on their genders. While young men such as Romeo, Hamlet, and Laertes are given relatively free reign to do as and go where they please, Juliet and Ophelia are much more constrained by their parents. The tight control of these parents over their daughters, and their attempts to shape their lives, indirectly cause the young women’s deaths. Shakespeare therefore suggests that young women should be given more freedom, as their male counterparts are. This idea greatly challenges the social

Juliet rushes into an ill-fated plan to escape with Romeo because her parents are forcing her to marry Paris, and this ultimately leads to her suicide. Because Polonius pushes Ophelia to deceive Hamlet, she loses her lover, and when this is coupled with Polonius’s slaying by Hamlet she is driven to total madness. Without her father to shape her identity, Ophelia is lost, telling King Claudius that, “I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died” (Hamlet 4.2. 177-178). Although some may argue that this is actually evidence Shakespeare supports the notion of daughters being compliant with their fathers, I think that it moreso shows that because of the strict constraints placed on Ophelia, she was unable to handle her grief without being pushed to insanity. Shakespeare presents the idea that when young women are controlled, they will meet their gruesome end because of it. This also connects Juliet and Ophelia to the theme of civil war and self-slaughter that the playwright explores in both