Language Techniques In Romeo And Juliet

How Juliet’s language shows her love for Romeo

The 1694 play Romeo and Juliet introduced to the world the love story of two of litterature’s most prominent historical star crossed lovers. The two characters in question are Romeo and Juliet, whose love overthrows the balance of their world. Before meeting Romeo in Act 1, scene 5, Juliet appears to be an intelligent child, mature beyond her years and devoted to her family. This situation is completely overturned once Romeo, her first true love, enters the seemingly perfect picture that is her life. Shakespeare communicates the love that Juliet possesses for Romeo wonderfully with the use of distinct language techniques. In particular, Juliet’s love for Romeo is crafted into the story and demonstrated

Firstly, Juliet’s soliloquy about Romeo and the obstacles in their relationship clearly demonstrates her love for him. This intense and romantically centered soliloquy that Juliet exclaims on her balcony shows a mixture of feelings including worrisome indecision, as well as passionate love. Romeo is the principal subject, and this shows us that Juliet most probably already harbors deep feelings for him. The second time she speaks, Juliet says “Oh Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?” Here one can also see the use of a rhetorical question. The author’s intention regarding this quote was probably for the audience to empathize with Juliet and understand her despair at the fate that called her to love a Montague. The audience then wonders if this perhaps has any regard to the star-crossed factor of their love which is mentioned in the prologue. Another rhetorical question is “What’s a Montague?”, an interesting question which demonstrates Juliet’s maturity as she disregards the

An example of her selflessness can be seen when she says “Deny thy father and refuse thy name, or if thou will not, be but sworn my love, and I’ll no longer be a Capulet”, where her desperation and readiness to lose her own titles and name to be with Romeo prove that what she is after is love, and not his name or the prestige that comes with it. Furthermore, Juliet is a young and extremely volatile character, and this is never better demonstrated than in this scene, where Juliet falls in love with Romeo instantly and all but takes her marriage vows in the following 30 minutes. However, all of a sudden, Juliet tells Romeo that she finds the contract “too rash, too unadvised, too sudden”, which means Juliet suddenly has hesitations about their love, and wishes for some time to go by and ensure that it will last. Next, when they are in the process of saying their goodbyes, Juliet expresses her wish to have him gone, “And yet no farther than a wanton’s bird.”, which shows how much she wishes for his proximity, though she then says a few lines farther down that “(Juliet) should kill thee with much cherishing” with which she means that she cherishes him so that she could metaphorically kill him, and is worried her love will cause him troubles. This could cause the audience to begin to wonder whether their wish for mutual