Relationship Between Romeo And Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet are from two prominent and feuding families who reside in the city of Verona, a real city in northern Italy. As far as the audience are aware, they are their parents’ only offspring, the only other ‘children’ in the family are Benvolio and Tybalt, cousins to Romeo and Juliet respectively. As only children, their parents are naturally protective of them – Juliet’s father, especially. Towards the beginning of the play, in Act 1, Scene 2, Paris asks Capulet for permission to marry his daughter. In Elizabethan times (when the play was written and performed), it was the job of the father to give away the daughter, as if she were a present or his property, rather than her own person. Rather than just give away …show more content…
It could be read ‘Indeed, I never shall be satisfied with Romeo, till I behold him, dead – [dead] is my poor heart for a kinsman vex’d’,where the kinsman is the slaughtered Tybalt… or ‘Indeed, I never shall be satisfied with Romeo, till I behold him. Dead is my poor heart…a kinsman vex’d’… where Romeo isn’t dead, just a kinsman (husband) vexed (in distress).She says that if she could find a poison that would let Romeo ‘sleep in quiet’, she would temper it. Whereas Lady Capulet would see this as her daughter wanting to poison Romeo and kill him, the audience may take it as her wanting to take Romeo’s troubles (i.e. their separation) away so that he can sleep peacefully at night. More observant members of the audience may also link this to the ending of the play, where Juliet temporarily poisons herself in an effort to solve her and Romeo’s problems. When Juliet says that her ‘heart abhors to hear him named, and cannot come to him. To wreak the love [she] bore [her] cousin upon his body that slaughter’d him’, her mother takes this as not being able to lay her hands upon him… but the audience obviously realises that she means that it hurts her to hear his name and not be able to be with him… perhaps even to get sexual gratification out of him. The audiences may well be shocked by these lusts that are well beyond her years – remember that she is only 13.The tension at this point would be building, as Juliet is playing a dangerous game by playing with her words like this. The indication that Juliet wants to ‘wreak her love upon him’ may also have been quite shocking… audiences of the time would not have been so exposed to such blatant references to sins of the
Romeo and Juliet are from two prominent and feuding families who reside in the city of Verona, a real city in northern Italy. As far as the audience are aware, they are their parents’ only offspring, the only other ‘children’ in the family are Benvolio and Tybalt, cousins to Romeo and Juliet respectively. As only children, their parents are naturally protective of them – Juliet’s father, especially. Towards the beginning of the play, in Act 1, Scene 2, Paris asks Capulet for permission to marry his daughter. In Elizabethan times (when the play was written and performed), it was the job of the father to give away the daughter, as if she were a present or his property, rather than her own person. Rather than just give away …show more content…
It could be read ‘Indeed, I never shall be satisfied with Romeo, till I behold him, dead – [dead] is my poor heart for a kinsman vex’d’,where the kinsman is the slaughtered Tybalt… or ‘Indeed, I never shall be satisfied with Romeo, till I behold him. Dead is my poor heart…a kinsman vex’d’… where Romeo isn’t dead, just a kinsman (husband) vexed (in distress).She says that if she could find a poison that would let Romeo ‘sleep in quiet’, she would temper it. Whereas Lady Capulet would see this as her daughter wanting to poison Romeo and kill him, the audience may take it as her wanting to take Romeo’s troubles (i.e. their separation) away so that he can sleep peacefully at night. More observant members of the audience may also link this to the ending of the play, where Juliet temporarily poisons herself in an effort to solve her and Romeo’s problems. When Juliet says that her ‘heart abhors to hear him named, and cannot come to him. To wreak the love [she] bore [her] cousin upon his body that slaughter’d him’, her mother takes this as not being able to lay her hands upon him… but the audience obviously realises that she means that it hurts her to hear his name and not be able to be with him… perhaps even to get sexual gratification out of him. The audiences may well be shocked by these lusts that are well beyond her years – remember that she is only 13.The tension at this point would be building, as Juliet is playing a dangerous game by playing with her words like this. The indication that Juliet wants to ‘wreak her love upon him’ may also have been quite shocking… audiences of the time would not have been so exposed to such blatant references to sins of the