Romeo and Juliet (Acts 4 & 5)

Romeo and Juliet – Acts 4 & 5

“Therefore, out of thy long-experienced time, …If what thou speak’st speak not of remedy.” (4.1.60-67) A woeful Juliet is the one who speaks these lines as we see her desperately try to find a way out of marrying Paris. It seems to her that the only way out of this is to take her own life so that she might be spared from having to be away from her true love, Romeo. However, I can’t help but wonder what other way she could have taken instead of being terribly dramatic. In comparison to her, we see Romeo also speak lines of despair to the apothecary from whom he desperately seeks poison to take his own life: “Hold, there is forty ducats. Let me have…Doth hurry from the fatal cannon’s womb.” (5.1.59-65) Here Romeo begs the apothecary to let him buy poison so that he may take his own life and be with his beloved Juliet in death, and in turn we see how disparaged he is over his lovers end. However, it seems to me that no one else except for Romeo and Juliet speak in such desperate terms.

“Tush, I will stir about, …Since this same wayward girl is so reclaimed.” (4.2.39-47) These few lines comes from Juliet’s father, Capulet, in which we see how happy he is to hear that Juliet has renounced her ways in defying him and wishes to marry Paris. Although Capulet suspects nothing, it should at least seem a little odd to him that his daughter was quite defiant not even a day ago, and then there she went bringing too great of news. Capulet sees nothing suspicious about this and so feels no need to talk in desperate terms – in fact, we see even before this that while Juliet was rebelling he felt no need to do so there either. Up until Romeo and Juliet die, there is truthfully no other person who talks in such a disparaged way except for them. I think this happens because Shakespeare most likely wanted to keep the suspense of the play and if he were to have other characters speak as such then the audience would know that something was aloof. I also believe that this could have been done so because Shakespeare wanted to keep at least a bit of lightheartedness until the very end where tragedy befalls Romeo and Juliet.