Character Analysis of Juliet from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

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Character Analysis of Juliet from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

In this play Juliet is a character that develops from an obedient and

innocent to child into a tragic heroine. Shakespeare’s audience

already knew the story of Romeo and Juliet from a very popular story

in Europe, which was translated in English in 1562 as a poem called

“the tragicall historye of Romeus and Juliet” by Arthur Brooke. He

based his poem from Pierre Boaistuau’s French translation from an

Italian source. Shakespeare adapts Brooke’s poem for a stage

production developing the characters and changed the time frame. He

changes Juliet’s age from 16 in Brooke’s version to 13, which helps

highlight some themes of his own such as Juliet’s vulnerability and

youth. He also changes the amount of time from months as it seems in

Brooke’s version to a few days in Shakespeare’s, which meant that

Romeo and Juliet only spent a night with each other. At the time they

lived in a patriarchal society which means that the father was in

charge of the family and there was no other point of view than his.

At the beginning of act 1, Lord Capulet is speaking to Paris about

Paris’ suit to marry Juliet. Capulet doesn’t agree outright as he

feels she is too young. This sets him apart from many fathers at the

time, as it costmary for daughters to simply marry off for the family

to make money. This shows that, Lord Capulet does care for his

daughter and is not willing just to give her up in the way that many

people would. However he does invite Paris to his banquet so that

Paris can meet Juliet and so he can find out what Juliet thinks.

Paris’ persistence may also show that he considers the potential

marriage to be more than just a business transaction, which makes the

audience worry about the consequences of this on the “star cross’d

lovers” that they heard about in the prologue.

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Then Lord Capulet tries to force Juliet to marry Paris but Juliet is

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