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Juliet
How does Shakespeare present Juliet in the play?
Juliet is a female protagonist in the play. She may only be thirteen years old but
progressively becomes more decisive and headstrong over the course of the four
days the play is set over. Shakespeare attempts to present Juliet as an object of desire
whose only function is to be married and although she’s therefore seen in this
reductive way, the character of Juliet displays a complexity and maturity contrasting
her age. As the protagonist she is perceived as an anomaly as she attempts to reject
the societal pressures she faces. For one she insists on marrying for love and therefore
becomes the catalyst causing the metamorphosis of Romeo from a lovesick
Petrarchan lover to a Shakespearean lover. She also acts as an antidote to certain
violence as we will explore
Firstly, Juliet is a decisive an intelligent character. From the offset when we meet her in
act 1 Scene 3, we meet her as a naïve timid character who abides by her parents’
wishes. Nevertheless, Juliet being from an upper-class family meant she was a well-
educated girl as indicated from her witty quick thought of responses, particularly to
her mother in response to whether she can ‘like of Paris.’ To this her dialogue indicates
emotional maturity and headstrong nature as she replies, ‘I’ll look to like, if looking
liking move.’ She proceeds ‘but no more deep will I endart mine eye than your
consent gives me strength to fly.’ The half rhyme highlights her dissidence and
foreshadows her future rebellion against not only her family but society as well. With
regards to the phrase ‘Ill look to like’ the active verbs used with the prominent first-
person pronoun ‘I’ll’ conveys her confidence in being able to make her own decision.
To the audience this could depict her to be opposing the forces of oppression which
in typical Elizabethan Britain, which women would have forced to be conformed to as
they were under control of their fathers until marriage when they were given away to
the husband. In Elizabethan Britain women were conditioned into subjugation and
submission to their master but Juliet’s contravenes the norm as Shakespeare depicts
her as an anomaly and atypical for her time – for the audience this could have
evoked a sense of criticism.
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