Comparing Act 3 Scene 5 and Act 4 Scene 5 in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet essay

The Act 3 Scene 5 and Act 4 Scene 5 are set in Juliet’s bedroom in Capulet’s mansion ‘Verona’. To begin with, the atmosphere in Act 3 Scene 5 is very romantic, kind, loving and is running at a slow pace but when Romeo leaves and lady Capulet enters, the atmosphere turns aggressive, insulting and upsetting and gets into a faster pace. This is unusual seeing the start of the scene where the language used was quite soft and kind. But as Lady Capulet enters into the scene, it turns into aggressive and very harsh language is used.

The atmosphere in the second scene is different because at the start the atmosphere is very lively, fast pace and exciting as it is Juliet’s marriage to Paris, but as the play goes on, the atmosphere changes rapidly from exciting to sad and from fast to slow pace and it also turns in to shocking and stressful. This change of atmosphere happens due to the death fake of Juliet where Shakespeare uses dramatic irony which makes the audience involved in the play as they know more than some of the characters in the play.

In Act 3 Scene 5and Act 4 Scene 5 we feel that Capulet is a contradictory person. In Scene 5 he gets provoked by the disobedience of Juliet, in her not agreeing to marry Paris, he gets very angry. In anger he says very hurtful things to Juliet which he doesn’t mean. Like

“Hang thee, young baggage, you disobedient wretch”

He turns so angry that he doesn’t even let Juliet speak. He uses imperative verbs which show us that he is prominent as he is the head of the house and regains power and authority quickly after feeling threatened that Juliet is taking his authority off him. This is not normal in Elizabethan times as the society wa...

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...riage of Juliet is illegal as her age is only 13 and her forced marriage to Paris. They will also be shocked by lady Capulet because a mother cares for her child but lady Capulet doesn’t care about Juliet. The effect on an Elizabethan audience is that they will be shocked on the behaviour of two specific characters. Juliet and the nurse, this is because they stood up to Lord Capulet which is really unlikely because it was a patriotic society.

These scenes are important to the rest of the play because in these scenes Shakespeare uses irony like references to death like Juliet’s vision of Romeo dead in the tomb. Lady Capulet wishing Juliet was dead. Then Juliet’s fake death and then the real death at the end of the play. These all are connected because, at the start they just speak about death and then happens the fake death followed by the real death of Juliet.