What is responsibility? Is it the ability to care for the outcome of others? Yourself? Is it “The state or fact of being accountable or to blame for something”? (Google) In Romeo and Juliet, a play by William Shakespeare responsibility is a trait that actively affects the storyline of the famous tragedy. Lady Capulet is portrayed as irresponsible in Shakespeare's writing, an unfit mother, heartless person, and partially responsible for the suicides of Romeo and Juliet. Lady Capulet is an unfit mother because she neglects her basic responsibilities as a parent. In scene three, she compelled Nurse to call Juliet for her. She says: “Nurse, where’s my daughter? Call her forth to me.”(Act I, Scene III, Line 1) This presents Lady Capulet as an …show more content…
She is portrayed as such when she believes she discovers Juliet crying over her cousin, Tybalt’s, death. Lady Capulet announces, “Evermore weeping for your cousin’s death?/ What wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?” (Act III, Scene V, Line 70-71) Not only is this a brutish response to come from anyone, especially one's mother in times of grief, but it is incorrect. Juliet is weeping for Romeo, her husband, the man she loves so much she would kill herself to be with him. If Lady Capulet was a trustworthy person, Juliet would have confided in her, as she did with Nurse, of her escapades with Romeo. Juliet did not, showing her distrust or dislike of her mother, and even married without a word to either of her parents. Lady Capulet is also insensitive because when Nurse speaks of Juliet’s childhood, Lady Capulet tells her to be quiet, as if she is speaking of something unnecessary. Lady Capulet says, “Enough of this. I pray thee hold thy peace.” (Act I, Scene III, Line 53) This is insensitive of her because Nurse took care of her daughter and is recounting memories of her development as a person, and Lady Capulet waves this all away in her bore of what makes Juliet truly