Confusion In Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet

Confusion is common when reading the end of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, as many readers fail to understand why Juliet is willing to sacrifice herself for a man she has met only that week. The soliloquy that Juliet delivers to the audience, given just hours before she will marry, reveals Juliet’s longing for Romeo and impatience for the night. As one of Juliet’s only speeches, the purpose of this segment is to elucidate Juliet’s character and give insight to readers as to why she would end up making the decision to fake her death and then eventually take her own life.
Romeo and Juliet is a fast-moving novel, the marriage occurs within the span of only a few days after Romeo and Juliet meet. This results in many readers failing to

In her first line, her tone turns darker and she references losing their, “stainless maidenhoods” (3.2.13). The maidenhoods she refers to are her and Romeo’s virginities, which she already wants to lose in her first love. Juliet continues and makes an extended metaphor for hawks, telling the darkness to, “hood my unmanned blood, bating in my cheeks” (3.2.14). In falconry, the birds are often hooded by keepers in order to tame them, but often a falcon will “bate” its wings to attempt to escape (3.2.14). This metaphor insinuates Juliet’s untamed love, straining to break free. Juliet also refers to how she has not previously been in a relationship, because she is, “unmanned”, meaning without a man (3.2.14). She then requests the darkness to cover her with “thy black mantle” until this “strange love” that she has not experienced before will “grow bold” (3.2.15). Juliet is uncertain of how love should feel and thinks, “true love acted simple modesty”, which is a reflective line, where Juliet considers what true love means (3.2.16). Using light and dark imagery, Juliet tells Romeo, “thou wilt lie upon the wings of night”, implying he is her light in the darkness (3.2.19). Continuing this, she compares him to “new snow upon a raven’s back” (3.2.20). During this segment of the speech, Juliet compares Romeo to white against black and the brightness in the night, which

Juliet begins with a double-entendre, “when I shall die”, which both foreshadows her suicide but also means her climax when she consummates her marriage to Romeo (3.2.23). She then instructs the world to cut Romeo “out in little stars” such that he “will make the face of heaven so fine” (3.2.24-25). Juliet proceeds with this space analogy and contends that Romeo “will make the face of heaven so fine” and “pay no worship to the garish sun” (3.2.26-27). She makes her claim that Romeo is handsome enough to make the world ignore the sun and only see his brightness. Juliet now waits “Like an impatient child” for the time to come when she will marry Romeo (3.2.32). Juliet desires Romeo so much that she will be willing to go to extreme lengths to be with him. Finishing off her metaphors for the day and night, Juliet refers to her anticipation as “the night before some festival”, where the festivities allude to her and Romeo losing their virginities to each other