Romeo And Juliet's Attitude Towards Women

Rome and Juliet is a play written by William Shakespeare which is set in 16th century Verona, Italy and is the tragic love story between two young lovers. From this play, we can see the difference in attitude towards women between 16th century Verona and the 21st Century vividly. This essay will look at how Shakespeare presents women in Romeo And Juliet. We can see the difference straight away as Act 1 Scene 1 opens with a conversation between two servants of the Capulets named Samson and Gregory. They convey that women are weak as in line 14 they say "women being the weaker vessels".(1.i.14). From the line "when I have fought with the men, I will be civil with the maids;"(1.i.18&19) also states that women are weak as it indicates that

This reaction can be caught in these two lines "to hide her face, for her fan 's the fairer face"(2.iiii.88) and "A bawd, a bawd, a bawd!"(2.iiii.107). The first one conveys that the nurse is ugly and 'bawd ' in the second quotation means prostitute, the combination of these two quotations helps us perceive that ugly women are referred to as prostitutes. This point also shows that women are supposed to be pretty. This point is proven in Act 1 scene 1 in the conversation between Romeo and Benvolio about Romeo 's love, Rosaline. In this scene, we can see that Men who make fun of Ugly women, like Romeo in line "A sail, a sail!" (2.iiii.83), put beautiful women on a pedestal, like when he said: "she is rich in beauty " (1.i.206) and "She is too fair, too wise" (1.i.212). This quotation shows that there is a major contrast between these two points of views of

In Act 1 Scene 2 lord Capulet appears to be giving a choice to Juliet when he says "My will to her consent is but a part, And she agreed, within her scope of choice Lies my consent" (1.ii.17,18&19) this suggests that daughters might have a say in whom they marry. Although this view is disproven in act 3 scene 4 when Lord Capulet says "I think she will be ruled In all respects by me" (3.iiii.13&14). In this line, the words 'ruled ' and 'by me ' hold great significance as it hints that children have no right and must follow their parent 's decision in 'all ' matters, like a subject under their king. This view is later on supported in Act3 Scene 5 when he says "get thee to church a 'Thursday" (3.iiiii.161). When refused by his daughter Juliet, he responded: "this one is one too much" (3.iiiii.166) expressing that daughters who do not act according to their father are worthless and a burden on the