Romeo and Juliet

1. Romeo and Juliet

2. House of Montague House of Capulet Prince Montague Lady Montague Capulet Lady Capulet Romeo Friar Lawrence Juliet Mercutio Benvolio Rosaline The Nurse Tybalt Paris

3. PRINCE of Verona The Prince of Verona wants peace, but he can't restrain the violence between the Montagues and the Capulets. If the Prince can't do anything about the feud, it means that the law (which the Prince embodies) is powerless against the passions of hate and of love. Act 5 Scene 3Line 307

4. Act 5 Scene 3Line 307 IMPORTANCE: We're slightly hopeful that, from now on, the rule of law will be able to keep these people in line—and that maybe we'll move on from the feuding, gang-type, family-based excuse for justice to an actual system of law-and-order. Go hence to have more talk of these sad things. Some shall be pardoned, and some punished; For never was a story of more woe Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”

5. Capulet Lord Capulet is Juliet's daddy. At first, he seems like a pretty good dad. When Paris comes sniffing around for Juliet's hand in marriage, Capulet puts him off, citing Juliet's young age and even suggesting that he'd like his daughter to marry for "love“. But Capulet doesn't play the good father for long. Paris eventually wears him down, but Lord Capulet isn't too happy when Juliet refuses to marry him. Lord Capulet's response to Juliet's "disobedience" is so violently harsh that we begin to see him as a bit of a tyrant.

6. Lady Capulet Lady Capulet makes a small effort to reach out to her daughter, but it's obvious that Juliet's closest bond is with the Nurse; Lady Capulet never even comes close to challenging that. When Juliet needs her mom's support, Lady Capulet ignores her daughter's pleas to help her avoid marrying Paris. After Lord Capulet storms out, Juliet turns to her mother to soften her father's punishment. Juliet begs her to delay the marriage!

7. Montague Romeo’s father, the patriarch of the Montague clan and bitter enemy of Capulet. At the beginning of the play, he is chiefly concerned about Romeo’s melancholy.

8. Lady Montague Romeo’s mother, Montague’s wife. She dies of grief after Romeo is exiled from Verona.

9. Friar Lawrence A mentor to both Romeo and Juliet, Friar Laurence constantly advises them to act with more caution and moderation, even though he doesn't wait too long before agreeing to marry off these two crazy kids. It does seem like the Friar might be running a little too fast in his haste to use these teenagers to patch up a hopeless family feud. He does achieve his goal, even if it wasn't quite in the way he intended—unless, that is, you think he somehow planned this tragedy all along.

10. ROMEO The pressure to be a "man" (which involves a lot of sword fighting in this play) eventually gets to Romeo. He caves in to the idea that masculinity and violence go hand in hand. And, we all know that when Romeo kills Tybalt his actions have some major consequences—Romeo is banned from Verona, which leads to him to seek out some pretty bad advice and guidance from Friar Laurence, which basically leads to the deaths of both Romeo and Juliet. He's emotional and angsty, and it drives some people crazy. His over-the-top infatuation with Rosaline at the beginning of the play, immediately followed by, um, completely forgetting about Rosaline, can make Romeo seem shallow and foolish. Act 5 Scene 1 36 Act 2Scene 3 45-46

11. With Rosaline, my ghostly father? No. I have forgot that name, and that name’s woe. Act 2Scene 3 45-46 Romeo was just saying how much he loved Rosaline. Now that he’s seen Juliet (all he did was SEE her), he has completely forgotten about Rosaline?! What gives?!

12. Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee tonight. This shows that Romeo is genuinely in love with Juliet. He vows to kill himself (“lie” with her) and he does follow through with this promise. Act 5 Scene 1 36

13. JULIET Juliet undergoes the greatest evolution during the course of the play and gets to speak some of Shakespeare's most poetically beautiful lines. Juliet starts out as a naïve girl who's dependent on her family and ends up a woman willing to desert that family to be with the man she loves—over the course of five days. Juliet may be beautiful, but she's also much more than just a pretty face. She's smart, witty, and determined; it's Juliet, after all, who proposes to Romeo, not the other way around. Act 2 Scene 2 17 Act 3 Scene 2 109-11 Extra

14. If that thy bent of love be honourable, Thy purpose marriage, send me word tomorrow Act 2 Scene 2 17 If you like it, then you should put a ring on it (basically)…

15. Act 3 Scene 2 109-11 Nurse breaks the hopeful mood of the scene with the news that Romeo has killed Tybalt. Juliet's first reaction is to grieve over her cousin and reject Romeo as just another heartless Montague. But then she changes her mind: in a single monologue, Juliet decides to choose loyalty to her new husband over love of her family. What's cool about this is that Shakespeare uses the very words she's speaking to show the switch: in the first two lines, "husband" and "Tybalt" actually switch places. For a woman in Shakespeare's time, this is exactly what marriage meant: your priority was now your husband and your husband's family. Married to Romeo, Juliet is literally no longer a Capulet. My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain;And Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my husband:All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then?

16. Juliet's path to suicide is different than Romeo's. Romeo has been banished from his home city, but still has contact with his family & friends. Juliet has been stripped of the support of everyone around her. She has to undergo a series of events that take her from saying good-bye to Romeo after their wedding night, to the news that she is supposed to marry Paris, to her father's rage when she refuses, to a meeting with Paris himself. Extra Her father threatens to throw her out of the house onto the streets if she doesn't marry Paris. Her mother nearly disowns her. Even the Nurse turns against her. As far as we can tell, she hasn't really been anywhere besides her home and Friar Laurence's. She has no idea how to survive in the outside world, especially in the Elizabethan world where women couldn't really function without husbands and fathers, unless they were prostitutes. AND, in case you forgot, she's thirteen years old.

17. Romeo's sword-fight loving BFF who never backs down from a duel and, although he's neither a Montague nor a Capulet, he gets involved in the long-standing family feud on the side of the Montagues.  Mercutio Act 2 Scene 1 1 He's dirty, funny, out of control, and—we'll say it—compared to him, Romeo and Juliet can seem whiny and repetitive. Mercutio is technically a minor character, but his personality has such a disproportionate impact that maybe he has to die or he would take over the play. Act 1Scene 1 4

18. Act 1Scene 1 4 If love be rough with you, be rough with love;Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down. It's not surprising that, with this attitude toward love and sex, Mercutio comes across as opposed to the whole idea of love between a man and a woman.  When Romeo complains about the heartache of his unrequited love for Rosaline, Mercutio tells him to get over it already!

19. Act 2 Scene 1 1 I must conjure him.I conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes,By her high forehead and her scarlet lip, By her fine foot, straight leg and quivering thighAnd the demesnes that there adjacent lie,That in thy likeness thou appear to us!  It's not just "love" that Mercutio has a problem with. He's also pretty hostile toward women and female sexuality in general. The clearest example of this is when he lists Rosaline's body parts in a crude monologue that makes fun of Romeo and a popular poetic convention. So, is Mercutio's hostility toward women and heterosexual love an indication that he's more interested in the guys? Maybe.

20. Benvolio Benvolio, whose name literally means "good will," is a classic nice guy: stuck playing the straight man to Mercutio and the non-romantic-idiot to Romeo, constantly telling everyone else to chill and stop fighting and "keep the peace", and being asked to spy on his friends. What? That's right: Romeo's parents (his aunt and uncle) turn to him when their son is acting weird, and the Prince always asks him to explain what went down in the most recent street fight.

21. Rosaline Rosaline is the gorgeous and aloof woman Romeo crushes on until he meets the love of his life, Juliet. But, um, don't get excited, because we never see her, she has no speaking part, and she isn't even listed in the dramatis personae (the cast list). According to Romeo, Rosaline is beautiful and completely unavailable—Romeo tells us she's sworn off boys by taking a vow of chastity.

22. Nurse Even a tragedy needs some comic relief, and who better than Juliet's bawdy, lower-class nurse? It's comic gold: she's a lower-class women, so that's already funny. The Nurse and Juliet may have a loving, teasing sort of relationship at the beginning of the play, but when Juliet needs her most—after her parents order her to marry Paris—the Nurse betrays her. Romeo is as good as dead, the Nurse tells Juliet, and she had better forget him and marry Paris. Act 3 Scene 5 5

23. Act 3 Scene 5 5 Maybe the Nurse simply doesn't understand that Juliet's love for Romeo is the real thing, and not some childish infatuation. There's also the possibility that the Nurse doesn't want to lose Juliet to an uncertain future with Romeo in Mantua. Selfishness might play a role in wanting her beloved Juliet to stay in Verona and marry Paris—and doubtlessly bring the Nurse with her when she moves to Paris's house. Either way, this is a pretty cruel move. On the other hand, maybe the Nurse doesunderstandJuliet's love for Romeo—she's just woman of the world and knows how limited Juliet's options are, in a way that an idealistic little teenager doesn't.  Romeo is banish'd; and all the world to nothing,That he dares ne'er come back to challenge you; Or, if he do, it needs must be by stealth. Then, since the case so stands as now it doth, I think it best you married with the county. O, he's a lovely gentleman! Romeo's a dishclout to him: an eagle, madam, Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eyeAs Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart, I think you are happy in this second match, For it excels your first: or if it did not, Your first is dead; or 'twere as good he were, As living here and you no use of him.

24. Tybalt You don't have to look far for Tybalt's motivation: testosterone. He's not deep, but he sure is handy with a sword. Mercutio, who hates Tybalt, gives him the "catty" nickname the "Prince of Cats," and it totally fits. While Romeo can sometimes remind you of a bouncy and overeager puppy, Tybalt tends to stalk around proudly attacking anyone who strokes his fur wrong. We get just a hint of that when his uncle Capulet prevents him from beating up Romeo for crashing the Capulet's masked ball, and he promises to bash in Romeo's skull at a later date

25. Paris A kinsman of the Prince, and the suitor of Juliet most preferred by Capulet. Once Capulet has promised him he can marry Juliet, he behaves very presumptuous toward her, acting as if they are already married.