Sunday, 24 June 2012

How does Shakespeare portray Juliet's changing feelings about love in Romeo and Juliet?

Whenaskshow she feels about , her parents'
choice for a husband (whom she has never met), she replies:


I'll look to like, if looking liking move:
But no more deep will I endart mine
eye
Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.


Not only will Juliet seek to love the man she has never seen, she will love him exactly
as much as her parents would like her to. In 1.3, when she first appears, Juliet seems the
epitome of a dutiful daughter: quite uninterested in romantic love except as a way of pleasing
her parents.

When she meetsfor the first time in 1.4, her spontaneous
completion of a perfect sonnet with him signals that she has changed completely. She seems to
have grown up as well as fallen in love within hours. In 2.2, she has changed so much from the
dutiful daughter of 1.3 that her first thoughts are about forsaking her family, no longer being
a Capulet, for the sake of Romeo. Although she briefly vacillates later, upon hearing that Romeo
has killed , this expresses her attitude toward love for the remainder of the
play.

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