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Lord Capulet Romeo And Juliet

Good Essays

In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare presents many different aspects of Lord Capulet's personality in a wide variety of ways. In Act 1 Scene 2, Shakespeare employs the metaphor 'let two more summers wither in their pride / ere we may think her ripe to be a bride'. In this metaphor, Shakespeare describes Juliet as a fruit. This reference to the natural world presents Juliet as beautiful while verb such as 'wither' and 'ripe' present Juliet as immature and naïve, not ready for the serious event of marriage. Furthermore, like a fruit can easily be bruised, Shakespeare shows how Juliet can easily be damaged and how Juliet is powerless in her choices and will be chosen by a man, like how a man picks a fruit from a tree, mirrored in the Elizabethan Patriarchal society when women were powerless and it was the men who possessed all the power. However, a contemporary audience would react very different to this, possibly outraged due to Juliet's lack of choice in her life. In addition, it is possible to say that Shakespeare choosing to rhyme 'bride' and 'pride' reflects Lord Capulet's feelings towards Juliet marrying. However, later on in the extract, Lord Capulet says how those who are 'too soon marred are those too early made'. The word 'marred' has two meaning, married and ruined so in this line, Shakespeare shows how Lord Capulet is fearful of Juliet's premature marriage as he doesn't want Juliet to become ruined, alluding to his own unhappy marriage with Lady Capulet, and how Lord

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