Relationships in Romeo and Juliet

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The relationship shown in Act 3 Scene 5 between Juliet and Lady Capulet is portrayed as poor. Lady Capulet is shown as a very distant mother, though this is to be expected when there is a Nurse taking care of the child from the early stages of the child’s life.

In Act 3 Scene 5 Lady Capulet is very fickle in making her decision to stand up for Juliet when she decides to go against her father’s orders and not marry Paris. This lack of the ability to stand up for her own daughter just emphasises the distance between Lady Capulet and Juliet as Mother and Daughter.

This fickleness is shown through related quotes like, “I would the fool were married to her grave”. Lady Capulet then changes her mind and shows some faint rebellion against Lord Capulet with the quote, “You are too hot”. This shows that Lady Capulet is trying to calm Lord Capulet down, because she fears that he may be going too far with his punishment, this shows she doesn’t want to lose her daughter, even if she refuses to do what she is told. This shows some faint sense of care and concern for Juliet.

The relationship shown between Lord Capulet and Juliet is also shown as weak. Like the relationship between Lady Capulet and Juliet, Lord Capulet is shown as a very distant Father, the reason for this might be partly down to there being a Nurse in the house. I think that it is mainly due to Lord Capulet being the head of the Capulet household; therefore he might be too busy for his children. Another contributing factor to this distance between father and daughter might be that Lord Capulet knows there is a Nurse caring for the child, therefore there is not much need for a father figure to be at home very often.

How Lord Capulet reacts to Juliet’s decision in Act 3 Sc...

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...ll bring happiness to Juliet’s life. This emphasises how much the Nurse takes into consideration Juliet’s best interests, this again shows the way in which the Nurse takes on the Mother role.

The way in which Shakespeare uses language and action to explore and reveal the relationships between Juliet and her parents and the relationship between Juliet and the Nurse uses many different writing techniques to show love, hate, betrayal and the different roles played by the characters in the play. Using these different techniques helps to elaborate on the subject of different relationships between different characters in the play. This is key to help the audience understand how this play is based upon romance and tragedy, it helps the audience understand how wrong and discouraged the love between Romeo and Juliet would have been like in the time this play was set.

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