Juliet’s excessive desperation advances death in Romeo and Juliet
After Juliet wakes up from her death, she sees Romeo’s dead corpse, and tries to kiss her way to death by poison, however, it fails. Juliet is so desperate to be with Romeo that she stabs herself with Romeo’s dagger and falls. In Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet, is about two star-crossed lovers in the depths of forbidden love, despite a family feud between their two families; the Montagues and Capulets. The theme of Death develops as Juliet’s desperation grows to be with Romeo and her blinding love progresses her closer to death.
Juliet is devastated by the thought of Romeo’s banishment, desperate for her wedding night to come, and she threatens to kill herself if Romeo does not come to her. Juliet quickly changes from being desperate for the wedding night to suicidal. Romeo’s banishment is equivalent to death in her eyes and Juliet says, “death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead” (Shakespeare 3.2.137). Juliet’s intensity of her love for Romeo is so immense, it has the potential to be catastrophic. Without Romeo in her life, Juliet feels
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Juliet shows her desperation when she begs her mother to “delay this marriage” and states if she does not she should “make the bridal bed” in the tomb “where Tybalt dies” (Shakespeare 3.5.199-201). This quote foreshadows her death while pleading to her mother, lady Capulet for help. She threatens to kill herself where Tybalt just died and is placed in the tomb. All of these implicit words such as Tybalt, tomb and bridal bed, just heightens the theme of death, and the lengths Juliet will go in order to prevent this marriage. Juliet is so desperate that she is begging her mother to propone the marriage but when lady Capulet refuses to help, Juliet conjures up the theme of death by stating a series of death marked
In an attempt to push away from medieval love conventions and her father's authority, Shakespeare's Juliet asserts sovereignty over her sexuality. She removes it from her father's domain and uses it to capture Romeo's love. Critic Mary Bly argues that sexual puns color Juliet's language. These innuendoes were common in Renaissance literature and would have been recognized by an Elizabethan audience. Arguably, Juliet uses sexual terms when speaking to Romeo in order to make him aware of her sexuality. When he comes to her balcony, she asks him, "What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?" (2.1.167). Bly asserts that "satisfaction in her hands, becomes a demure play on the sating of desire" (108). Following this pun, Juliet proposes marriage. She teases Romeo with sexual thoughts and then stipulates that marriage must precede the consummation of their love. Juliet uses "death" in a similar sense. She asks night to "Give me my Romeo, and when I shall die / Take him and cut him out in little stars" (3.2.21-22). Death holds a double meaning in these lines. It connotes both "ceasing to be and erotic ecstasy" (Bly 98). Based upon this double meaning, one can infer that "she sweetly asks 'civil night' to teach her how to lose the game of love she is about to play for her virginity" (Wells 921). She tells her nurse, "I'll to my wedding bed, / And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!" (3.2.136-137). Placing death opposite Romeo highlights the irony of the situation; both death and Romeo should claim her maidenhead together. These sexual puns reveal Juliet's awareness of her sexuality. She entices Romeo, forcing her sexuality to act as emotional currency.
...se he believes Juliet to dead, drinks poison to take his own life as a last resort. What Romeo is unaware of is that Juliet is very much alive, so it is very ironic when he says, “Death, that has sucked the honey of thy breath,/ Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:/ Thou art not conquered; beauty’s ensign yet/ Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,/ And death’s pale flag is not advanced there” (V iii 101-105). This is fate in the works in the play. When Juliet sees that her love has not rescued her and rather is dead, she kills herself with a dagger found in the proximity. “O happy dagger/ This is thy sheath; there rust and let me die” (V iii 182-183).
Juliet strategizes her disastrous plan and worries, “How if, when I am laid into the tomb, I wake before the time that Romeo come to redeem me?” (Lines 30-32 of Act Four, Scene Three). Juliet is desperate to see Romeo, ergo she plans to fake her death. Her thoughts of Romeo finding her lifeless foreshadows their future. Romeo is deprived of the news of Juliet’s real state of health, therefore he says, “Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee tonight. O mischief, thou art swift to enter the thoughts of desperate men!” (Lines 34-36 of Act Five, Scene One). Once again, Romeo’s perception is only focused on Juliet. His mental instability leads him to think Paris is in the way obtaining true happiness, thus he slays him. Romeo acquires poison, stands beside Juliet, and states, “Here’s to my love! (Drinks.) O true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.” (Lines 119-120 of Act Five, Scene Three). Romeo observes Juliet’s body and determines that he should die beside her. Juliet wakes to his lifeless body, and determines she should commit suicide, as well. Romeo’s foolish decisions lead to the death of himself and
“From forth the fatal loins of these two foes a pair of star crossed lovers take their life” (I prologue 5-6). Romeo and Juliet is known by many as a love story, but what if it’s not a love story but a story of obsession and desperation. Romeo is from the Montague family, and Juliet is from the Capulet family. The two families have been feuding for many, many years. In this story, Romeo and Juliet become obsessed with the feeling of being in love. They will go to extremes to be together, such extremes as death.
ng she stabs herself before they ask her why she's still alive and what's been going on, Juliet does this to save herself and to be with her husband Romeo, after death. "Yeah, noise? Then I'll be brief. O happy dagger, This is thy sheath; there rust and let me die. " Love triumphs in the end because the two families are united.
Her words foreshadow her death at the end of the play. “Go ask his name: if he be married./My grave is like to be my wedding bed” In the prologue, Shakespeare uses phrases such as “death-marked love” and “star-cross’d lovers” to show that fortune and fate are responsible for the tragedy. Shakespeare also describes Romeo and Juliet’s defiance of their parents as “misadventured piteous overthrows.” This description suggests that the lovers’ efforts to be together will be hopeless against what fate has in store for
The Death of Romeo and Juliet and Who is to Blame Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, in which a young boy and girl fall in love and commit suicide. They come from 2 different families which have a deadly feud against one another. Romeo goes to a masked ball at the Capulet's household where he falls in love with Juliet. He then proposes to her after the party in secret at Juliet's balcony. Romeo then arranges a secret weeding with Friar Lawrence and Juliet tells the Nurse.
When Juliet first wants to know Romeo’s name, she tells her nurse, “Go ask for his name. If he is married, my grave is like my wedding bed.” Basically, she’s saying that she will never marry, if she can not marry him. How much more dramatic can you get? And, of course, Romeo wants to join her in dramaticness, like everything else, and declares that “[his] life was better ended by their hate, than death prorogued, wanting of [her] love.”
This is explored through the characters of both lovers, Romeo and Juliet. Near the end of the play, Juliet drinks a potion to make her appear dead to her parents and get her out of an unwanted arranged marriage to a man named Paris. Once her parents would find her dead and place in a tomb with her ancestors, her other lover, Romeo, would get her and they would elope together. However because of miscommunication, Romeo was not aware of this plan and he heard that Juliet had died from someone else. Because of this he goes to see her and decides to kill himself, but after seeing her “dead” body for closure. When Romeo thinks Juliet is dead, he immediately resorts to suicide without once thinking about any other possibilities or considering a life without her. This quick conclusion leads to the unnecessary death of Paris, who also came to meet Juliet, and Romeo, himself, which then leads to Juliet killing herself. Before Romeo drinks poison and commits suicide, he says “Here’s to my love! (drinks the poison) O true apothecary,Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.” This rash and hasty decision, had it been put off for a minute or so would have resulted in Juliet awakening and the couple living together, which was their goal. However, Romeo’s impetuosity results in an unhappy and tragic end to him, his wife and his wife’s other lover. This
In the play, Romeo and Juliet sneak out a lot to see each other. They do this because they are from rival families and their don’t want them to interact with each other at all. By sneaking around, it created more problems and Juliet drank a potion that would put her to sleep for a while and as a result, they both ended up killing themselves. They were both not listening to their parents and by doing that, it ended badly for both of them and their families.
Juliet’s weakness to be controlled by love leads her to make unadvised and irresponsible decisions that contribute to her choice of ending her life. Characterized as a young and rash teenager, with no interest in love and marriage at first, Juliet wants to be independent. However, after she first lays eyes on Romeo, Juliet’s perception of love is quick to change. Their strong love easily manipulates and clouds her judgment. Even if she is cautious and realizes their love is too fast, the rush of feelings from having a first love overcomes her. Her soft-spoken words symbolically foreshadow the journey of Romeo and Juliet’s love. “Well, do not swear. Although I joy in thee, / I have no joy of this contract tonight. / It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;…/ This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath, / May prove to be a beauteous flower when next we meet” (2.2. 117-123). The blooming flower is indicative of their growing love, especially Juliet. Being her first experience of true love, her actions become more rash the deeper she falls in, even ...
...t on the spot, and are too immature. Romeo and Juliet’s spring of blind love quickly deepens and causes them to face situation that they have never faced before. They do not know how to handle their bizarre complications, as the story takes a quick, unpredicted turn and turns into a nightmare for them. Romeo and Juliet are forced to make rash decisions one after the other and do not consider the possible solutions other than suicide, causing them to look up to suicide as their only hope. Their bizarre complications are caused by their blind, immature, and excessive love and their act of taking their own lives is also caused by immaturity, idolatry for each other, and the shortness of time. Romeo and Juliet suicide at the end of the story, due to the shortness of time and the extremity of their love; they believe that they have no other options, other than suicide.
Juliet's disobedience to her family's wishes becomes more apparent when she decides to marry Romeo. When the Nurse arrives with news for Juliet to "hie you hence to Frair Laurences' cell; there stays a husband [Romeo] to make you a wife" (Act II.5.73-74), Juliet is ecstatic. This portrays Juliet as being disobedient because while she accepted Romeo's proposal, her family has already arranged a marriage between Juliet and Paris. Juliet's disobedience continues until her death in scene five when Romeo's dagger finds "thy sheath" (Act V.3.170) in Juliet's body. The significance of Juliet's change in character is to show her accelerated transformation from a young girl into a mature woman.
Juliet goes through physical pain, stabbing herself so she can be with Romeo after his death. Juliet looks at death as a positive thing because it allows her to be with Romeo again. Before she kills herself she says, “O, happy dagger, this is thy sheath. There rust, and let me die” (Shakespeare V.iii.174-175). In most romantic tales, violence is the last thing you would think of when it comes to love, but it would be different in this play.
When the friar hears of this, he devises a plan so that the two lovers can be together. The major climax of the play comes when the friar gives Juliet a potion that will make it seem as though she has died, when in fact she is alive the whole time. While in Mantua, Romeo mistakenly hears that Juliet has actually died and he goes to lay by her side. Just as he takes a vile poison and dies, Juliet awakens to find her love lying dead at her side. She cannot fathom living in a world without Romeo, so she takes his sword and ends her own life.