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.
Para2
Then Lord Capulet tries to force Juliet to marry Paris but Juliet is