Romeo and Juliet

1
Romeo and Juliet

• Act 3, scene 2

2
Act III, Scene ii - Summary

• Juliet is impatient for night so that she can be
  with Romeo
• Nurse is distraught and unable to make clear who
  is dead
• Juliet thinks Romeo has killed himself Hath
  Romeo slain himself? and resolves she will also
  kill herself
• Nurse then reveals Tybalt is dead and Juliet
  fears both Tybalt AND Romeo are dead
• When the truth is at last revealed Juliet makes
  ONE speech cursing nature that it should put the
  spirit of a fiend in Romeos sweet flesh
• BUT when Nurse joins her Juliet reverts to her
  loyalty
• Nurse explains Romeo is hiding at Friar
  Lawrences cell and Juliet sends the Nurse with a
  ring, bidding Romeo to come and take his last
  farewell.

3
Tension and Mood

• Setting is peaceful (the Capulet orchard)
• Contrasts to the conflict in the previous scene
• Juliet looks forward to the amorous rites of
  her marriage
• Her impatience echoes her excitement in Act II,
  Scene 5, when she had to wait for news of the
  wedding arrangements
• Contrast we know that her happy hopes will not
  be fulfilled
• Sense of impending doom hangs in the atmosphere
  as she is unaware of the tragedy which awaits her

4
Dark Imagery

• Darkness for the lovers is a time of safety
• Juliet beckons the darkness because it has been a
  sanctuary for the couple, if love be blind, / It
  best agrees with night.
• The lovers have forged their love at night as
  they
• met
• agreed to marry
• consummate their marriage
• die together under the cover of night
• Their affinity for the darkness illustrates their
  separation from the temporal, feuding world

5
Light Imagery

• Although external light (the garish sun) has
  become their enemy, the lovers provide light for
  each other
• Juliets eyes were like the stars, she doth
  teach the torches to burn bright!, and is
  Romeos Juliet is the sun
• Here, Romeo brings day in night
• Juliet begs fate to cut Romeo out in little
  stars
• These stars represent both the timeless quality
  of the couples love and their fate as
  star-crossd lovers who will only truly be
  united in death

6
Fate

• Although Juliet is unaware of the tragic news
  that awaits her, her soliloquy contains tragic
  images suggesting the dark future she states of
  Romeo if he should die
• Even when Juliet understands that Romeo is not
  dead, his banishment is equivalent to death in
  her eyes Ill to my wedding bed / And death,
  not Romeo, take my maidenhead.
• The association between Juliet and death as her
  bridegroom pairs the themes of love and death
• This emphasises that her young life is constantly
  overshadowed by death

7
Love/ Death

• Shakespeares linking of love and death
  continues with Juliets first reaction being that
  Romeo MUST have killed himself, and
• Her own willingness to kill herself
• This theme of the intensity of extreme love
  leading to a death impulse will be echoed in the
  upcoming scene, and Romeos reaction to his
  banishment

8
Juliet and Loyalty

• Juliet feels conflicted because her love for
  Romeo clashes with her love and sense of duty to
  Tybalt
• She expresses her conflicting emotions for Romeo
  using oxymorons Beautiful tyrant, fiend
  angelical.
• She is angry, but swiftly restores her loyal
  feelings
• Juliets loyalty is firmly grounded in her love
  of Romeo and no longer for family - she is now a
  wife first and a daughter and cousin second
• She believes that Romeos banishment is worse
  than the slaying of ten thousand Tybalts
• She laments that she will die a maiden-widow
  there is no other love for her
• She offers her ring to give to Romeo as a token
  of her love, loyalty and forgiveness

9
Juliet and Nurse

• The Nurses inability to comprehend the intensity
  of Juliets love for Romeo causes a a change in
  their relationship
• Juliet is emerging as a young woman with her own
  opinions and emotions
• She no longer relies on Nurse for maternal
  guidance
• The rift between the Nurse and Juliet foreshadows
  the final split in their relationship which
  occurs in Act III, Scene v when the Nurse betrays
  Juliet by advising her to forget Romeo and marry
  Paris

10
Conflict

• The blissful love of Act II has completely
  disappeared in the tension of Act 3
• The conflict has caused this deterioration
• It is now extremely unlikely that their alliance
  will turn such extreme rancour to pure love