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How Does Juliet Change Throughout The Play

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William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is a tragic play about two star-crossed lovers toying with forbidden love, despite the ancient feud of the two families. One of the four major characters is Juliet Capulet. Shakespeare introduces Juliet as a young and innocent teenage girl with little thought about love or marriage, but at the end of the play she is viewed as quite the contrary. Her unwavering love for Romeo transforms her into a young, but mature, woman. Juliet’s maturity is portrayed through many different characteristics independence being a main characteristic amongst them. Her independence and stubbornness is being displayed when the Nurse pushes her to marry Paris, but Juliet strongly refuses and no longer trusts the Nurse, …show more content…

Beginning as a young and obedient girl, her love for Romeo Montague transforms her into an independent young woman. In Act Three Scene Five, the Nurse says “…I think it best you married with the county. O, he's a lovely gentleman! Romeo's a dishclout to him: an eagle, madam, Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart, I think you are happy in this second match, For it excels your first: or if it did not, Your first is dead; or 'twere as good he were, As living here and you no use of him.” Once the Nurse leaves, Juliet’s true attitude towards the Nurse is revealed when she says “Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend! Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn, Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue Which she hath praised him with above compare So many thousand times? Go, counsellor; Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain. I'll to the friar, to know his remedy: If all else fail, myself have power to die.” Once Romeo kills Juliet’s cousin, the Nurse advises her to marry Paris, since Romeo is good as dead now. She reasons with Juliet stating that Paris is a lovely gentleman and that he is far better than Romeo. Juliet is taken back by what she just heard from the Nurse, asks herself which is a greater sin in the Nurse, the advice to break her marriage vows or to dispraise Romeo. Either way, Juliet will never trust the …show more content…

Her intelligence is showed in many different scenes, but the conversation between Paris and Juliet in Act Four Scene One is a prominent one. Paris says “Do not deny to him that you love me.” Juliet in response states “I will confess to you that I love him.” During this conversation, Juliet’s intelligence is revealed when she neither denies the fact that she loves Paris, nor confesses to Paris or any family member, her love for Romeo. Much of Juliet’s dialogue in this particular scene has a dual understanding to it. For example, when Juliet says “I will confess to you that I love him,” she could have implied either Paris, or Romeo. “Paris and Juliet then engage in a conversation in which Juliet intentionally misleads Paris about her feelings and the reason why she is visiting Friar Laurence.” Juliet is shrewd and intelligent with her words, and knows how to please Paris, without being dishonest to herself or her beloved. She misleads him in the conversation, but her dialogues to Paris have a dual meaning, hence it depends on Paris’s understanding of her response. However, Juliet’s intelligence is portrayed through this act like the many other aspects of her character is in her

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