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Romeo and Juliet essay plans
Romeo:
Romeo is introduced as a reckless and excessive figure in love with the idea of love
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● In the Baz Luhrmann film, he is dressed as a knight at the party, representative of
courtly love
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● ‘O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!’/’it is the east, and Juliet is the Sun’
● ‘Heaven is here, where Juliet lives’
● ‘Bright angel’ (Baz Luhrmann)
● ‘Dear saint’, ‘good pilgrim’ -elevates Juliet to the status of a God
● Contrast with rape imagery at the beginning
● Capulet’s attempts at control and ownership: ‘and you be mine, I give you to my
friend’
On the other hand, he is also presented as a part of the patriarchy/oppressor of
women
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● Aristotle: two components of tragedy are fear and pity
● By telling us what is going to happen in the prologue, the audience both fears the
inevitable tragic ending when the ‘star cross’d lovers’ ‘take their lives’ and therefore
feels pity, particularly in instances of foreshadowing (e
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)
● ‘O, I am fortune’s fool!’ link to ‘as flies to wanton boys are we to the gods: they kill us
for their sport’
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● Three Fates?

Juliet
Juliet is initially presented as a meek and obedient daughter
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● Perpetuator of stoicism
● ‘Sends’ the Nurse
Just as Juliet’s love for Romeo restores his vivacity and gives him the will to live, so
too her (seeming) death drives him to suicide
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Juliet’s love for Romeo is strikingly tender and reverential, markedly different from the
coarse sexual crudeness of other characters
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Romeo and Juliet are both, arguably, idolatrous in their love for each other
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● Prologue asserts that they are ‘star-cross’d lovers’; their fate is hanging in the stars
● Juliet asks for Romeo to be ‘cut out into little stars’- reminds us that they will have a
tragic ending
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Shakespeare reaffirms the inescapable fate stalking the lovers on a structural level
within the play by presenting a series of scenes which echo each other, but always
move from happy to sad
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Shakespeare uses the lovers’ tragic fate to generate the key emotions of tragedy; fear
and pity
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blame fate to avoid responsibility
The lovers blame the fabricated form of fate, to avoid taking respo nsibility for
their rash actions
‘O let us hence, I stand on sudden haste’
‘This is too rash, too unadvis’d, too like the lightning’ - omission of the conjunction
‘and’
‘We met, we wooed and made exchange of vows’ - shows how short their meeting is
Aristotle says that to get drama you need a short amount of time: play takes place in
3 days
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‘O I am fortune’s fool’
‘He that hath the steerage of my course, direct my sail’

‘My mind misgives some consequence yet hanging in the stars’
‘Can heaven be so envious?’ → Juliet blaming fate when Romeo gets banished
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Notion of her blaming Heaven
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gods has predestined them as a punishment for their idolatry
break at least 7 of 10 commandments of old testament
idolatry
suicide
‘you’re a bright angel’
‘I’ll cut you out into little stars’
→ idolatry, ironic as they allude to the fact they will go to heaven, but they won’t
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light imagery/prologue/reversal
constellations of star imagery overhangs the play
‘star-cross’d lovers’
‘yoke of inauspicious stars’
‘i defy you stars’
‘cut you out in little stars’
‘my mind misgives some consequence yet hanging in the stars’
heaven is above/ in the sky amongst the sky
horoscopes
indeed when he meets juliet, involves a shakespearean sonnet which has iambic
pentameter (heartbeat), fixed cadence fixed fate
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Prophetic
prologue which sets out the events of the play
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Refelcts God’s predestination
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death
death is personified as juliet’s 3rd lover
death is used with a capital D
Her relationship with Romeo is always going to end with dead
something else is pursuing/acting upon them
foreshadow death
‘my grave is like to be my wedding bed’ etc
‘hads’t thou no poison mix’d, no sharp-ground knife’ → order in which they kill each
other
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Foreshadows

Juliet’s fake death emphasises the pity, and foreshadows her real death
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Romeo and Juliet are both, arguably, idolatrous in their love for each other
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● Romeo is a religious name
● Live in a Catholic society
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● FRIAR: ‘I’ll dispose of thee among the sisterhood of holy nuns’
● Friar uses church to cover up his lies and sins
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Golden statues of Romeo and Juliet: reminds us of
their sinful acts
● Political statement → anti-Catholic to show Queen Elizabeth
Agape, eros, philos/platonic love – all forms of love are present in the play
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Undermines earlier
love
● ‘I have done with thee’ ‘Nurse, stay’
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‘The course of true love never did run smooth’ 
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream 
 
Throughout the play, Shakespeare explores the greatness of romantic love through the 
relationship between his protagonists, Romeo and Juliet
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The best display of this is in Romeo’s 
unconventional submission to Juliet in the ​patriarchal world ​that they live, shown in 
both the physical raising of Juliet above Romeo on a balcony, and in Romeo’s 
declaration that Juliet ​‘doth teach the torches to burn bright’​, giving her knowledge 
and authority
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She also feels that he is everything to her, describing Romeo as 
her ​‘love, lord, ay husband, friend’​, and does not weep in Act 3 Scene 5 for her 
‘cousin’s death’​ – as her mother believes - but for Romeo, ​‘the villain which 
slaughtered him’​
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Shakespeare gives further proof of the deepness of their 
love lies in Romeo’s character development across the play, alluding to the phrase 
‘simplex sigillum veri’​
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The ​alliteration here marries these two words 
together​, making it pellucid that Romeo’s ​‘love’​ lies with this ​‘lady​’
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Despite it perhaps being not as pure, from the start of the play Shakespeare presents 
familial love as a force that is far more common, but still strong enough to provoke the 
characters to overcome social constructs
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Indeed, in ​the original 
production Juliet would have been played by a man​, making this submission highly 
controversial
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While 
the deepness of this love can be a great force for good, Shakespeare also tells of how it 
can wreak havoc and cause violence from the very start of the play
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Confirmation of this comes in the initial scene where Shakespeare 
tells how the ​‘parents’ rage’​, despite simply sprouting from an ​‘airy word’​, is enough 
to induce even the servants of the ​‘two households’​ to engage in ​‘fatal brawls’​ and 
break the laws set out to them by Prince (​‘throw your mistempered weapons to the 
ground’​), so deep are their feelings of loyalty
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However, the trueness of this love is 
called into question when Romeo unites to his parents ​‘great enemy’​ as he refuses to 
fight the ​‘good Capulet’​ Tybalt after wedding Juliet
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Lust (patriarchal/abuse/rape) 
In the face of all these different versions of love, Shakespeare also puts it to the Tudor 
audience that lust is perhaps the more prevalent emotion in our society
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‘lammastide’ (Catholic festival) ‘have you leave to go to 
mass today’ → set in Catholic place to show the life in a Catholic society, broken from 
Catholic church: now Protestant 
Even though they live in a Catholic society, they are shown to be very bigoted: 
Idolise each other ‘God of my adultery’ ‘Heaven is here, where juliet lives’ Double 
suicide, NURSE: pushes her to get married even though she is already married
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‘Holy’ → corruption of faith ‘Dispose’ → 
get rid of it, doesn’t care about her 
Deus ex machina figure → despite he knows what he has done is wrong, he confesses 
and tells the story: the feud resolves ‘this alliance may so happy prove to turn the 
household’s  
Golden statues: moses comes down from receiving the 10 commandments to see the 
Jews worshipping a golden calf
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Undermines earlier 
love 
‘I have done with thee’ ‘Nurse, stay’
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It is my love’ The classic principle: 
‘Simplex sigillum veri’ language is so simple, monosyllabic: Love for romeo is true
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Juliet changed throughout the novel a lot
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Tybalt is one of the most violent characters in the play, and seemingly revels in such
actions
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Age and Youth
Old Capulet has a keen sense of his position as pater familias, and will brook no insult
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Given the inescapable, tragic fate looming over the play, even Old Capulet’s acts of
generosity and kindness have lamentable consequences
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Given Juliet’s distance from her mother, the nurse is a necessary surrogate for this
relationship
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Shakespeare present the adults as a bad influence over their children
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Capulets authority in his household ‘Have you delivered to her our decree?’ 
Capulet A3 S5 ‘my fingers itch’ 
‘green-sickness carrion’ colour imagery, rotting meat ‘baggage’ 
Capulet speaks majority of lines  
‘you’ll be mine, I’ll give you to my friend’ objectified 
Romeo too objectifies her – ‘merchant’ metaphor  
Paris assumes she will marry him 
Greek marriage proposal – ‘I chose you and your parents chose me’ Oeconomicus 
Mother rejects daughter for fear of Capulet’s rage ‘I would the fool were married 
to her grave’ 
However speaks up to him at start, ‘a crutch, a crutch, why call you for a sword?’ 

Shakespeare uses the disapproval of the youth from their parents to make the 
audience question whether they are too rash
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’ 
Friar L doubts depth of love ‘true love lies, not truly in their hearts but in thine 
eyes’ 
Delphic Maxim – nothing in excess 
Whole play is 3 days, speed of their love 
The nurse is too slow for Juliet: ‘old folks, many fein as they were dead, heavy 
slow and pale as lead
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Severed relationship w mother who cannot talk without nurse there ‘Nurse, come 
back again’ and ‘speak briefly’  
‘Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee
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What is
your will?’- as opposed to affectionate language in which the Nurse refers to her‘What, lamb! What, ladybird!’
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Ultimately, this makes her betrayal of ‘I think it best you married with the County’
(bigamy is a sin in the eyes of the Catholic Church) all the worse, and so justifies
Juliet’s renunciation- her ‘thou and my bosom shall henceforth be twain’ takes us
back to the beginning of the play when the Nurse describes how she would ‘nurse’
Juliet as a baby
When Juliet dies, the Nurse shows more devastation than Lady Capulet: ‘my only
child, my only life!’

Age and youth
● ‘But old folks, many feign as they were dead; unwieldly, slow, heavy and pale as
lead’
● ‘Had she affections and warm youthful blood, she would be as swift in motion as a
ball’
● ‘O, she is lame!’
Shakespeare presents the Nurse as an uneducated character who is low in status
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● Further, her language is fraught with malapropisms, such as ‘I desire some
confidence with you’ as opposed to ‘I desire some conference with you’
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● With this clear division between classes in both language and content of language,
Shakespeare comments on how there would be those who would pay pennies to be
in the stands of his plays, whereas monarchs and nobles would pay small fortunes
for the best seats
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Then developed
with character
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‘For never was there a story of more woe, then that of Juliet and her Romeo’
→ boasting that he wrote such a good play
→ woe and Romeo rhymes, predestined to have a sad life

Death
‘As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport’ 
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Gloucester ‘King Lear’ 

Shakespeare indeed seems to agree to this ever-present nature of death in this extract 
when it comes to the younger generation, alluding that it is the result of hatred and 
violence
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Despite presenting the older generations with ‘one foot in the grave’ (as the expression 
goes) throughout the play, in this passage Shakespeare makes it pellucid that the youth 
are perhaps a greater target of Death, making this loss of life all the more tragic
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Shakespeare’s constant degradation of the elder in the play for 
being ‘unwieldly, slow, heavy and pale as lead
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Even Juliet ironically believes in Act 2 Scene 5 that ‘old folks, many feign as they were 
dead’ - despite her imminent death just 3 acts away
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The use 
of this metaphor in the passage serves as a final illustration of how the lives of these 
‘children’ were cut short, and how they could have blossomed if left to grow in the world 
for a time longer, an enthralling plot for the audience as – said Aristotle – drama comes 
out of reversals
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Throughout the passage (even from ‘sweet Juliet’) there is a presence of underlying 
hatred in the violent plosive sounds of ‘bones’, ‘packed’ and ‘strangled’
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Indeed, it is ‘bloody Tybalt’ that 
Juliet speaks of in this passage (whether she is describing the state of his body or cursing 
him for exiling Romeo is unclear) who has been killed in the rampage of the household’s 
violence, conveying that perhaps it was his hateful actions that granted him this end
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Juliet too seems to have a share of this ‘mad blood’ as lines 34 onwards of this 
passage are part of a single sentence suggesting that it is all no more than a spill of 
insensible gibberish
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Through the 
reference in the passage to an ‘ancient receptacle’ – paired with other references across 
the pay to ‘funeral’, ‘melancholy bells’ and ‘solemn hymns’ – Shakespeare makes it 
pellucid to his audience that death, for ‘these many hundred years’ in Verona, has had its 
place within the rules and customs of the church
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Moreover, in the passage 
Juliet’s description of death as being ‘Together with the terror’ – the alliteration joining 
the two words - could be interpreted as Romeo, her partner she is with, being a 
frightening man
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Finally, Shakespeare hints to love and violence 
being inextricably intertwined in the sonnet structure that the lovers form with their 
words upon first meeting – as a Shakespearian sonnet was traditionally used to construct 
both love and conflict poetry
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The emphasis by Juliet 
in this passage that ‘all [her] buried ancestors’ lie in the grave serves as a reminder that 
death comes to everyone, despite characters like Romeo who aim to ‘defy…stars!’
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Moreover, in Act 3 (the most 
violent act) most scenes end with a ‘memento mori’ such as ‘die’, ‘kill’ or ‘farewell’ 
which remind the audience of the impending fate of the characters
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Through this, Shakespeare assures us that although this 
multitude of youthful deaths may be blamed on things such as the feud or Romeo and 
Juliet, death is a force that cannot be tamed by any human
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Love is not real: ‘vain fantasy… more inconsistent than the wind’ ‘If love be rough 
with you, be rough with love’ 

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Sexual and lustful talk about love: ‘If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark’ 
Cupid! ​Penetration imagery of arrow LUST ‘Cupid’s arrows’ 
‘bawdy had of the dial is now upon the prick of noon’ 3 unities of Aristotle 
‘Here’s my fiddlestick’ 

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‘They have made worms’ meat of me’ even at the end of his life he still puns Act3 
Scene1 
Its ingrained in culture – Juliet is only 13 and ‘seek happy nights’ ‘fall backwards’ 
‘teats’ 
Contrast to: ‘It is my lady, O, it is my love’ treats her with respect sigillim simplex 
veri 

Across the play, Shakespeare hints that much of this sexual frustration as well as his 
distain for the female form is because Mercutio is homosexual
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​In Nazi concentration camps gays 
were marked with a pink triangle
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Also theatre 
was where homosexuals could express themselves

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