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Explore how Shakespeare presents the relationship between Romeo and Juliet
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grade 9 (A+) essay Romeo and Juliet aqa gcse English literature paper 1
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Explore how Shakespeare presents the relationship between Romeoand Juliet
In the romantic tragedy play, ‘Romeo and Juliet’ Shakespeare
presents the relationship between the ‘star cross’d lovers’ as
omnipresent throughout the play yet also inherently unstereotypical,
due to the nature of their love, which juxtaposes the societal
normality of arranged, politically selected marriages.
The relationship between ‘Juliet and her Romeo’ is presented as
anachronistic and an antithesis for typical Elizabethan relationships
through Shakespeare use of reversed gender roles, which is evident
through the metaphor ‘Juliet is the sun.’ this quotation is significant
as it explicitly demonstrates the reversed gender roles as it
exemplifies the work of psychologist Claude Levi Strauss, who stated
that everything exists in pairs of active and passive binaries, the sun
being active in this instance. Following the works of Mary Eagleton,
we can assign feminine characteristics to the moon and masculine to
the sun. despite Juliet’s inevitable femininity she is likened to the
‘sun’, being assigned the masculine binary and in addition, as Romeo
speaks this metaphor, he is signifying the fact that he would go blind
for her, sacrificing his sight for marriage, paralleled perhaps to how
Elizabethan women would sacrifice their childhoods and liberty for
marriage. As a result, Romeo is picking up the passive role in the
relationship, reversing gender stereotypes and norms for a
contemporary audience. Alternatively, this metaphor – which
somewhat alludes to fiction as she cannot literally be the sun –
evokes a sense of unreliability as it is spoken by Romeo, who
embodies the Petrarchan lover, qualities of which include an over-
romanticised idea of love, ultimately labelling himself an unreliable
narrator and an untrustworthy source to dictate the relationship. In a
historical context, at the time, women had no freedom, property or
political influence in a marriage, which is what would’ve been
expected from Juliet, however through a feminist lens, she does not
attempt to conform to this through the pre-modified adjectival
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