William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet At the beginning of the play Romeo and Juliet, Juliet is portrayed as
a totally obedient girl, especially towards her parents. This is
clearly depicted in her language. The pressures that she faces as a
girl living in the sixteenth century are also very clear, such as her
father. We do not see anything of him for a long time, indicating a
poor father/daughter relationship, yet he appears to make all her
decisions for her, and she always complies, one example being an
arranged marriage. Juliet changes dramatically the night that she
meets Romeo. One example of this being when she lies to her closest
ally, Nurse, when she walks in on her talking her thoughts for Romeo.
This is so significant as she has an excellent relationship with
Nurse, who is effectively her mother. As the play continues, Juliet
appears to spend more time alone, dedicated to her thoughts about
Romeo and the situations she finds herself in, given in the form of
soliloquys. She also starts to make use of oxymorons and irony,
displaying a changing character.
At the beginning of the play, the audience is shown Juliet's
personality, as well as seeing how Juliet is raised and treated.
Juliet is portrayed as a child who is extremely obedient and
constantly behaves in an exemplary manner. She seems overly obedient
and docile. This is largely due to the fact that she always does as
she's told (as she is used to being told what to do) and she does not
have a good relat...
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...The Prince seems to realize how sad and ironic the whole situation is
and fittingly ends the play by stating; "For never was a story of more
woe, than this of Juliet and Romeo".
During the course of the play, we see Juliet's character constantly
developing. At the start, Juliet has been very much hidden away and
kept in the dark about life and has grown up in very comfortable
surroundings and is extremely obedient, especially towards her
parents. However, a dramatic reform of her whole character occurs the
night she meets Romeo, without knowing he was a Montague, her family's
rival. Juliet lies and turns to deceit for her own means. She has also
developed a far more intricate personality and character. Such changes
have been illustrated by her use of language such as irony, oxymorons,
soliloquys being a few examples.