The Changing Relationship of Juliet and Her Parents in Act Three Scene 5 of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

The Changing Relationship of Juliet and Her Parents in Act Three Scene 5 of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

The tale is set in old Verona, here lived two families, the Capulets

and the Montagues who hated each other more than death. They had to

pass each other in the streets and they were at each others throat

like cats and dogs. Cursing and bawling and bringing fear and anger to

the good people of Verona.

The relationship between Juliet (who was a Capulet) and her parents at

the beginning of the scene seems distance especially between Juliet

and her mother - Lady Capulet. Nowadays the bond between a mother and

her child at birth is very close, particularly if the mother decides

to breast feed, unlike in the play. In those days if you were rich, as

Lady Capulet was, you would get a peasant to breast feed your child as

it was thought if you were noble it was beneath your dignity to breast

feed your own child. So that's exactly what lady Capulet did. This is

where the role of the nurse comes into the play, she was Juliet's wet

nurse and in my opinion I think that is why the nurse and Juliet have

a greater mother - daughter bond than lady Capulet and Juliet.

The beginning of the scene is set the morning after Romeo and Juliet

had consummated their secret marriage. Her mother and father were

downstairs, blinded by lies told by Juliet, who said she was grieving

for the death of her cousin Tybalt, who had died the night before.

Already Juliet is lying to her parents, this tells us the readers that

there is certainly not strong relationship, that we can see, between

Juliet and her parents.

Lady Capulet arrives at the start of ...

... middle of paper ...

...arried to her grave' and her

father shouting, 'Hang thee, young bagget' and calling her a

'disobedient wretch'. It is no surprise that she considers killing

herself, 'Myself have power to die'.

The relationship between Juliet and her parents throughout the scene

deteriorates to nothing at all. To begin with Lady Capulet is happy

with her daughter, but Juliet's relationship with her mother isn't

very strong anyway but gets worse as the scene progresses, until Lady

Capulet

leaves. Capulet's relationship with his daughter is much more close at

the beginning but as soon as he finds out she doesn't want to marry

Paris and she is disobeying him, he immediately starts to argue, as if

she wasn't his daughter anymore. Their relationship is not very close

at the beginning of the scene but, by the end, it is non existent.