Line #17 Headscratchers/RomeoAndJuliet


1	!!O Tropeo, Tropeo, wherefore art thou writing in Administrivia/{{first person\|Writing}}? Deny thy personal anecdote and refuse thine instance of "This Troper". 'Tis but a wiki page and not a forum.
2
3	Headscratchers for ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet''.
4
5	[[WMG: Which servants work for which houses? (Or, stage direction in Act I, Scene 1)]]
6	The cast says that Gregory and Sampson work for Capulet, and Abram for Montague. But in Act I, Scene 1, when Benvolio Montague enters the scene, it is Gregory who says "Here comes one of my master's kinsmen." Had Gregory caught a glimpse of Tybalt offstage (who actually was one of Lord Capulet's kinsmen), was Gregory supposed to be a Montague servant, or what?
7	* Gregory and Sampson are Capulet servants and Abram and his fellow unnamed servant are Montague servants. Tybalt enters moments after Benvolio does (and in a lot of productions the two of them arrive simultaneously) so it's entirely possible (and often staged) that the "kinsman" Gregory is referring to is Tybalt.
8
9	[[WMG: Hey...]]
10	This Page should have its title changed to the full title of the play: "The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet"
11	** ''Romeo and Juliet'' by itself is easier to remember.
12	** If we wanted to go that route ''Twelfth Night'' should be ''Twelfth Night or What You Will'' but that's pretty unwieldy too. Shakespeare's genius didn't always extend to pithy titles.
13
14	[[WMG: Why doesn't Juliet wake up before Romeo killed himself and they run off together?]]
15	* Dramatically speaking, the play has to end with a tragedy so awful that it persuades the hot-blooded feuding Italians to lay down their quarrel and make peace. If Juliet runs off with Romeo, and Paris lives, both families are angry and disgraced and full of wounded pride. This is especially true of Lord Capulet, who has to explain to Count Paris (1) that he can't keep his promise to give him his daughter, (2) because he's such a weak patriarch that he can't even control a teenage girl in his own household. There'd be a happy ending for the two kids, but the two families would probably disown them, might put a contract out on them, and in their rage might fight each other twice as hard.
16	** Having had to read this in HS, you could read the suicide scene as one thing in a long list of things that didn't need to happen and that they could have been together but other people's hatred, a feud, secrecy, and unrestrained emotions is what ultimately led two families being equally punished by losing their children.
17
18	[[WMG:Okay...]]
19	...so at one point in the play Romeo has been banished to Mantua, and Juliet has been as good as kicked out of her house by her father because she doesn't want to marry Paris. Friar Lawrence's solution is for her to go back to her father and beg forgiveness, then fake her own death so that she can then run away with Romeo to Mantua. Now, here's a thought: ''why didn't she just run away to Mantua then and there?'' There is no reason at all why they should bother with the whole faking-death scheme: all it will do is introduce a gajillion different complications which could make things go horribly wrong (which they do), and the end result (Juliet leaves everything behind and runs away to Mantua to be with Romeo) would be exactly the same either way. So what's the point, other than Because The Plot Demands It?
20	* Juliet wasn't kicked out of the house, just yelled at and lectured and almost hit like any headstrong teenaged daughter. She had to have her Nurse tell her father she was going to the Friar's under the guise of confessing her disobedience; there's no need to make excuses for leaving when someone has kicked you out. That said, if Juliet ran away while she was engaged, her family and Paris would no doubt search for her, and given their means, money, and connections, would have good chances of finding her. Faking her death would ensure they wouldn't launch a manhunt for her that would end with her being dragged to the altar by her hair. (Given how things turn out, we can see that her and Romeo's chances for survival would have been better under those conditions, but they couldn't have predicted that.)
21	* If she'd openly accepted her father's offer of leaving the house and went to live with her new husband, what are the odds that someone with the same mindset as Tybalt would call out a hit on Romeo?
22	** One in one, because the mom sends out a hit on Romeo anyway.
23	* There's also the fact that Juliet was literally seconds away from killing herself. Friar Laurence was probably just saying the first idea that came to mind to stop her.
24	* What Friar Lawrence was hoping for was an end to the feud and peace between their families. Juliet running away to Mantua would enrage the Capulets against her, and the Montagues against Romeo. But if Juliet was thought dead amd restored to life, her parents would be overjoyed and welcome Romeo as a son in law, which would end the feud and restore Romeo to Verona.
25	* In several of the sources Shakespeare used, such as Matteo Bandello's story and Arthur Brooke's poem, Juliet does plead with Romeo to flee with him in disguise, but he dissuades her...he fears that it would only inflame the feud even worse, and the Capulets would be sure to track her down, have him killed, and God knows what would happen to Juliet since a noble family in this culture probably wouldn't be above honor-killing a daughter who'd disgraced them.
26
27	[[WMG:Why do the Montagues and the Capulets hate each other so much?]]
28	* Probably a minor economic dispute that spiraled out of control.
29	** Doesn't the story say that nobody knows?
30	* They're rival mafia families.
31	** Close, they were [[http://www.amazon.com/Manga-Shakespeare-Romeo-Juliet-William/dp/0810993252 rival yakuza]].
32	*** Okay... that is just plain ''cool!''
33	* "From ancient grudge break to new mutiny..." It's one of those family feuds that probably started over something stupid, and now the origins have been long forgotten. Neither family is really in the right.
34	* They don't really hate each other that much. Take a look at Lord Capulet's lines at the party. In fact, take a look at everyone except Tybalt between the beginning and Tybalt's death. It's pretty clear that the only person who really believes in the feud is Tybalt. (Of course, this means that if Romeo and Juliet had been open about their relationship this whole time, ''nothing would have happened''.)
35	* If only Tybalt believed in it, why were a whole bunch of Montagues and Capulets fighting in the streets at the start?
36	** Those were servants, not family. Finding it helps to use the (flawed but reasonable) analogy of a bunch of freshmen getting into a spat for a school rivalry that the older grades always talked about but never bothered with, beyond the occasional "harmless" prank.
37	*** But the second that both Lord Montague and Lord Capulet arrive, they personally demand swords and try to kill each other.
38	-->CAPULET: My sword, I say! Old Montague is come,
39	-->And flourishes his blade in spite of me.
40	-->MONTAGUE:Thou villain Capulet,--Hold me not, let me go.
41	* If you want to find rational and cool-headed, both of their wives demand the fight end, but the men? They HATE each other. Lord Capulet says later to Paris that it is not hard for old men like he and Montague to keep the peace, but twenty minutes before, they were going to stab each other to death.
42	** The men were probably spending most of their free time fighting each other in their youth, before they had to take command and hold the feud to get on with important business. They probably can't wait to have some fun trying to kill each other again. And Tybalt seems borderline AxCrazy.
43	* To recall correctly, one family was Guelph and the other Ghibelline. They were on opposite sides of a power struggle between the pope and the Holy Roman emperor.
44	** [[FridgeBrilliance THANK YOU.]]
45	* Many people cite the fact that Lord Capulet restrains Tybalt from attacking the masked Montagues during the party as evidence that Lord Capulet doesn't care about the feud. Refuting that: Lord Capulet had just been told ''that very afternoon,'' in no uncertain terms, that another brawl would result in his execution. He's got every reason to lay low. Besides, it's a party, and the Montagues aren't stirring up trouble ''yet''; there's no need to make a pre-emptive strike and ruin the evening. Even at the end, when they're leaving, his reaction is basically a very unenthusiastic "Oh, you're going? [[SarcasmMode No. Please. Stay.]] [[SincerityMode Okay, bye]]!!", whereas before he had been a marvelously gracious host.
46	** He doesn't simply restrain Tybalt, he goes out of his way to praise Romeo's reputation and say that he seems to be a good boy:
47	---> And, to say truth, Verona brags of him
48	---> To be a virtuous and well-govern'd youth:
49	---> I would not for the wealth of all the town
50	---> Here in my house do him disparagement.
51	*** The (subtle, but present) implication is that the feud is actually taken ''much'' more seriously by the [[HotBlooded hotblooded]] [[YouthIsWastedOnTheDumb younger generation]] than by their elders, and that the elders (while not immune to it) are looking for a way to bring it to a close.
52	*** Alternately, he's looking to his own reputation. Romeo's got a very good reputation in Verona, and Lord Capulet doesn't want to make himself look bad by tossing out the town's golden boy for no good reason.
53	*** Plus, he and Lord Montague have been warned by the Prince: any more trouble and it's your heads. Capulet was hoping to stay in the Prince's good books, and with two of the Prince's kinsmen there (Paris and Mercutio) he knew word would probably get back to the Prince that Capulet's being a good boy and not making any trouble...see, he's even allowing the Montague heir in his home! Especially important when Capulet's hoping to marry his daughter off to one of those same kinsmen of the Prince. ([[FridgeBrilliance Which could also partially explain his 180 in deciding Juliet must marry Paris right away after Tybalt is killed.]] Earlier, he was willing to wait a while, up to two years, not wanting her to marry too young. Then, after Tybalt's death, though he does say that he's doing it to cheer Juliet up, there could also be a practical consideration in it: he knows the Prince is furious with both families over the brawl that killed one of his kin, and marrying Juliet into the family would get the Capulets back into their ruler's good graces and get one up on the Montagues.)
54	*** Exactly. And Capulet is portrayed as having a strong sense of honor. He is not only showing gallantry and hospitality, even to a man he might kill in other circumstances, and avoiding an unpleasant scene that would spoil the mood for his other guests, but asserting his own authority (as head of the family) over Tybalt, who has just proposed the contrary. ("Who is the master here, me or you?")
55	** Another critical point is raised given the above comment about hospitality: SacredHospitality. Even if Capulet was eager to do Romeo ill, it would've made him look VERY bad if a guest at his house came to harm by his own hand or his family's, which might give other families reasons to side with the Montagues in their ongoing feud. Hence why he's trying to hold Tybalt back.
56	* Well, perhaps it had something to do with [[NoodleIncident an incident involving noodles]].
57	** Or pasta.
58	* It's assumed the feud's origin was intentionally left unaddressed -- that way, the audience wouldn't get caught up in taking sides rather than simply watching the play.
59	* With no real reason for this feud, it makes Mercutio's death more tragic, which he himself realises, hence why he curses both the Capulets and Montagues. He knows he's died for nothing.
60	* Not sure about you guys, but looking at it from the outside, It's kind of hard to buy the orthodoxy of "They've been fighting for so long they've forgotten why." How do we know they don't just have competing economic interests? Maybe they've just been fighting for a long time over the banking and trade industry in the city.
61	** That sounds like a very good explanation for how the feud ''started''. If you analyze violence deeply enough, you find that ''every'' fight is over some sort of resource.
62	* Also Shakespeare was fine with national stereotypes. In this play, he portrays the Italians as having hot-blooded, Latin temperaments -- so that it takes a serious tragedy, and not just the passage of time, a threat from the Duke, or the force of reason to cool them down. (Perhaps that's why it's important for Shakespeare ''not'' to have stated the basis of the quarrel...if it's a hereditary Guelph/Ghibelline thing, or a squabble over a piece of land or something, then the tragic deaths in the play can't cure it because they don't end the underlying problem.)
63	* A book called ''Saving Juliet'' that provided a detailed explanation for how the feud got started: Lady Capulet was born to a wealthy merchant family as Veronique Valdiza, but they had no titles. She met Romeo's future father and he fell for her, but Mr. Valdiza refused. The Valdiza family was eventually shamed, and one thing led to another, and the rest is history.
64	* It's arguably part of the entire point of the play that the feud is never given an explanation. No one in the play is once shown to even care about what started it, there's just a sense of "this is how it's always been so this is how it is". And when no one cares about what started something, it's that much harder to end it since neither side would be willing to take the blame. It's even reached the point where the feud is periodically considered stupid both by pretty much every character outside the two families (except Paris) as well as several within the families (Romeo, Juliet, Benvolio, Capulet, Lady Capulet and Lady Montague all at some point express unhappiness at the feud) but it still takes something as tragic as two teenagers killing themselves plus several others ending up dead to actually get them to make significant progress towards putting it behind them.
65	* It may be up to interpretation and the production involved, but it's been frequently thought of Lords Capulet and Montague basically saving face in the first scene, when the fighting starts. "OK, everyone's watching, and they know that our families hate each other, gotta keep up appearances." Both C and M pull a LetMeAtHim but allow their wives to stop them from actually fighting. Their servants (and Tybalt) are the only ones who really care about the feud at this point.
66	* Where are people getting the idea that both wives play the OnlySaneMan? Lady Capulet is arguably ''worse'' than her husband; when Tybalt is killed, she's the one baying for Romeo's blood, and ignoring that Tybalt killed someone too. Even when Romeo gets banished, she wants him killed. Granted she seems especially abusive in the 1968 film, but it's there in the text that she's just as pigheaded as the others. Lady Montague does seem quite rational though.
67	*** Some sources say the feud started several generations ago over some land dispute with one side getting more land and then it devolved into one-upmanship and continued until the current day where none of the current generations remember why they're fighting, just that they hate each other. In short, as in the play's context, they're fighting over ''nothing'' and probably could have been resolved a helluva lot sooner if either party swallowed their pride.
68
69	[[WMG: Why on Earth does the Friar randomly run away in the last act after just seeing Juliet waking up and seeing Romeo and Paris's bodies -- precisely when she is at her most vulnerable, as he himself had recognized earlier -- on such a dumb pretext as him hearing a sound and getting scared by it? It's peculiar that having a (up 'til now) sensible Friar around to stop Juliet from using her "happy dagger" would kinda ruin the emotional torque, but still...]]
70	** Act V scene 3:
71	--> '''Friar Laurence:''' I hear some noise. Lady, come from that nest
72	---> Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep:
73	---> A greater power than we can contradict
74	---> Hath thwarted our intents. Come, come away.
75	---> Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead;
76	---> And Paris too. Come, I'll dispose of thee
77	---> Among a sisterhood of holy nuns:
78	---> Stay not to question, for the watch is coming;
79	---> Come, go, good Juliet,
80	---> ''Noise again''
81	---> I dare no longer stay.
82	--> '''Juliet:''' Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.
83	--> ''Exit Friar Laurence''
84	** It's always been taken that as the Friar saying "Um, Juliet, there's been a change of plans. People will be here and they will be ''angry'', Romeo's not going to be here, and you should probably come with me ''without looking in that direction''! ''Hurry''!" and Juliet telling him "Screw you, if I don't get rescued by Romeo, I don't get rescued at all," and Friar Laurence assuming either that she was being thickheaded and would be taken care of by her family while he would be killed, or she had already seen the body and wasn't going to be helped.
85	** Who says the Friar's a good guy? He performs what is essentially an illegal wedding despite knowing Romeo's a feckless rake, knows lots about poisons and dodgy drugs, is frankly callous to Juliet's bereaved family, saying how much better off she is in heaven... The postal problems aren't his fault, true, but it can't be helped feeling his automatic thought was: If both these kids are dead and one runs off, no one's ever going to know if anyone had anything to do with it. He argues (not at all convincingly) that he's trying to bring the two families together, but what is his method of doing this? A secret wedding. What was stopping him from using his presumed influence with either family to make it ''legit''? As mentioned previously, only a handful of skanks are keeping the feud alive, and the Prince is sick to death of it. All in all, it makes an interpretation of him as flawed at best, downright corrupt at worst.
86	*** The wedding wasn't necessarily illegal, depending on when the story takes place. Remember, Shakespeare was living in a Protestant country at the time -- his knowledge of the new marriage regulations in Catholic Italy would have been spotty at best.
87	*** For the record, Canon Law requires that a valid marriage must be performed by a priest or a deacon in the presence of two witnesses, and that the bride and groom must be free to marry (a man and a woman, of legal age and capable of consummating the marriage, baptized, and not married to anyone else) and come together of their own free will (must understand the nature of marriage and not be acting under fraud or duress).
88	*** ...Is that Canon Law today, during the time period the play was set in, or during the time period it was written in?
89	*** Why would the Friar knowing about poisons and drugs make him corrupt? ''Someone'' had to know about those things. And while he knew that marrying Romeo and Juliet wasn't such a great idea, he thought that it was a way to end the family feud going on. As for the question, though, it's been figured that the Friar was just ''scared''. He was a very religious man who probably figured that there were evil spirits and bad karma and all associated with hanging around inside a tomb at midnight and ran for it. Juliet herself was terrified of being in the place and probably would have run, too, if it weren't for the whole "Romeo is dead" issue. She even panics at the sound of a noise, which prompts her to kill herself quicker.
90	*** Perhaps it's the fact that the Friar just happens to know how to make a coma-inducing potion is what makes him seem corrupt. Why would a priest need to fake a death?
91	*** Probably learned basic medical skills from being a friar and taking care of sick people in that capacity, if not even more (remember, many priests did and still do intellectual stuff on the side). And knowing how to save people through medicine often gives you the same knowledge on how to cause all sorts of horrible things to happen to people, including coma and death.
92	*** Your doctor could probably name about a hundred different combinations of pills that could kill you if he wanted. He knows these because he has to understand the side effects of what he's giving out. The Friar understands how his herbs work, and can therefore produce a certain potion when asked.
93	*** Also the clergy at the time, usually being the most educated people around, tended to pull double duty.
94	*** Remember that England was a Protestant country at this point, and there was a certain mistrust of Catholicism. In Shakespeare's source, Arthur Brooks' ''Romeus and Juliet'', one of the morals was not to take council from "superstitious Friars." Shakespeare seems more sympathetic towards Friar Lawrence, but there was still some problematic aspects to his character.
95
96	[[WMG: Why, after her father told her to marry Paris 'or else', didn't Juliet simply tell him she was already married? What horrible fate would have befallen her for giving a reason she didn't want Paris to "make [her] a joyful bride"?]]
97	* It's the middle ages. Considering how you could have gotten hung for [[DefiledForever extramarital sex]], how do you think they would react to you ''marrying'' someone behind everyone's back? Plus, even if one doesn't really know the social stigma around secret marriages, it's clear no one would argue with what the father chooses to do at that time, and he probably wouldn't like her actions...
98	** Getting married to a guy from the despised rival family who'd recently killed her cousin? Her father would have probably had a heart attack.
99	*** Though that would resolve that problem if he had a heart attack, considering the medicine in the middle ages.
100	* It was an illegal marriage. In the Renaissance era, a precontract of marriage, what Juliet had with Paris, had all of the binding of a real marriage. People were able to get out of inconvenient marriages if they could prove that the partner had a precontract with someone else that had never been officially terminated, making the marriage void. That's how Henry VIII got out of his marriage with Anne of Cleves. If she had brought it up, it would have escalated the problems of the feuding families to untold heights because Romeo had tricked Juliet into an illegal marriage while she was betrothed to someone else and had [[DefiledForever deflowered her]], making it near impossible for her to get a respectable marriage.
101	** Actually, there was no precontract, just a proposal. However, the age of consent in Elizabethan England was 21, meaning you can't get married without parental approval until both people are 21, so it was still illegal.
102	*** Except Romeo and Juliet takes place in Verona, Italy...
103	*** All of Shakespeare's plays, no matter where they're set, ''really'' take place in England, and are meant for an English audience to understand.
104	*** Yes, even if Shakespeare himself did the research, he knew full well that most of his audience ''couldn't''. Trying to play ShownTheirWork straight would only have befuddled the peasants, so Shakespeare didn't bother. (And that's assuming that he actually did the research himself -- there's no reason to believe that he did.)
105	* And since Juliet is the only daughter, she's their only chance of securing the future of their house. Paris was going to be a very beneficial husband to her family, and now that she's been deflowered, it'll be impossible for her to get a good marriage even if the parents refuse to allow her and Romeo to be together. At best, Juliet is looking at life in a nunnery. At worst, her whole family is ruined.
106	** To answer some of this, in the era when the play is set (the Renaissance, about 14th-15th century, towards the end of Medieval times), the bride had to be virginal, so while, Romeo and Juliet did marry in secret and could have backed out of it, they consummated their marriage by a certain act, so, if Juliet confessed, she'd likely be cast out of house, made to live in a convent (not ''all'' nuns were virginal back then, i.e. "get thee to a nunnery") or there would be a scandal.
107	*** And since Juliet is the only daughter, her virginity being lost before marriage (to a man her parents approved of at least) would mean either disgrace or lack of options for her family. Even if Juliet publicly said she was taking the veil to become a nun out of personal choice, it would leave the Capulets without a daughter they could marry off to forge an alliance with a more powerful house. So even if they can cover up the scandal, it's a lose-lose situation for everyone.
108
109	[[WMG: It's brilliantly written and whatever, but why does nobody pay attention to the fact that this WHOLE ENTIRE STORY takes place over the course of about a half of a WEEK?]]
110	* It's a common failing with Shakespeare plots: look at ''Othello'', where there would seem to be two separate time schemes working at once (we really need an ''Othello'' page!) It's odd, since the source material occurred over a few months, but this seems to highlight several points:
111	#) Our lovers are reckless teenagers, more likely to fall in love overnight;
112	#) How long (realistically speaking) would they be able to keep their marriage secret?
113	#) It makes more sense that Romeo would kill Tybalt straight after Mercutio's death, and of course he's banished straight afterwards;
114	#) It has to be a short space of time for the Friar's drug to work ... \
115
116	OK, other factors like the plague breaking out and Capulet doing a 360 turn to let Paris marry his daughter are less explicable, and fit more within a long range timeline. Let's chalk it up to the fact Will had to write to a deadline. If your company has to produce a certain number of plays per season, things like plot and sense can fly out of the window. He would never have expected the play to last past his lifetime, never mind have tropers picking at it on the Net hundreds of years later.
117	** Of course Capulet's decision to let Paris marry Juliet ''could'' happen realistically in a short while. The movie ''Romeo + Juliet'' has him be drunk as a lord out of grief for Tybalt's death, which leads to him impulsively deciding to hand her over. It also explains why he gets so furious at her, since she refuses the marriage while he's still drunk and upset.
118	* Also, what does it matter that it takes about a week? Some full doorstoppers take place over a few hours, and some short stories take place over years.
119	* A play is a lot like a movie. It's only a couple of hours long and it needs to keep a fast pacing to get through everything in time. Introducing long time breaks between scenes would require some way of establishing that time has passed (dialogue, narration, etc...), lines used to explain what has happened in the interim, break the feeling of continuous action and plot developments, and so on. So what movies and plays often to do is take some ArtisticLicense and let relationships (both romances and friendships) develop unrealistically fast in order to cram all the important stuff in.
120	* It's probably worth noting that in Arthur Brooks' ''Romeus and Juliet'', the poem from which Shakespeare took the story, the events took place over the course of several months.
121	* And by the standards of the time, Romeo and Juliet couldn't just sleep together if they found each other hot. They couldn't even date, because both were of the class where their parents decided their marriage prospects (there were betrothals and courtship periods before the weddings even happened). So their instant marriage was the only way they ''could'' be together. Romance was a luxury in those times, so the idea of marrying for love came second to the wealth and status of the spouse.
122	* And the story is not a manual on how to have a healthy relationship. The whole point of the feuding families plot is that things are so heightened that Romeo and Juliet have to hide and do extreme things because of the environment they've grown up in -- Romeo is probably used to not knowing if he's going to be killed in the streets that day and while Juliet is probably somewhat safer, anyone growing up in an environment where people are fighting so openly in public all the time is going to develop a similar attitude. The two fall in love and figure they should act on it immediately, in case it's all taken away by tomorrow. There's likely no long term planning in Verona because of the high risk of getting killed in one of these brawls. The Aesop here is that these two children couldn't just ''be'' kids because of the feud their elders have allowed to continue.
123
124	[[WMG: Why do productions often take out Paris's death, but leave in the Prince's comment about losing "a brace of kinsmen"?]]
125	Can they not count to two?
126	* Most likely, they were just trying to save time.
127	* They probably don't know that "a brace" means "a pair." Even if they do, it's an easy line to overlook, buried among all the Shakespearean style dialogue.
128	* Huh. That line always sailed over one's head -- perhaps he said "abrasive kinsman," acknowledging that Mercutio was, at least partially, responsible for his own death as well.
129	** Time constraints?
130
131	[[WMG: Why couldn't Juliet have just asked to wait to marry Paris?]]
132	She could have just made an excuse that she needed a few more weeks to marry Paris or something of the sort without yelling at her father (thus making him angry and forcing her to marry him) and in that span of time she could have left for Romeo.
133	* She doesn't yell at him or anything. Her dad comes in, asks his wife if she already told him about the wedding, and her mother says yes, and that Juliet is thankful but will not get married. Capulet immediately goes bananas, clearly implying with his questions that he thinks Juliet is an ungrateful little brat, and Juliet's attempt to appease him does no good. She probably didn't think he was gonna react that way, and it's doubtful any excuse she could have come up with would have made a difference.
134	* She ''does'' ask to wait -- "Delay this marriage for a month, a week" -- but it only makes her dad angrier.
135
136	[[WMG: Wait a minute...]]
137
138	There's two issues with the couple's wedding night. First off -- nobody hears these two? Nobody even comments on any mysterious sounds coming from Juliet's bedchamber. Oh, and they spent the whole night together and, instead of running off together somewhere to live their lives, just have some sex. Brilliant move, kids.
139	* In regards to the second part, see "It is not a romance" above. The story is about two horny teenagers who "fall in love" after meeting and throw their lives away over what basically amounts to lust. In other words, Shakespeare wanted them to be this stupid. That was the point.
140	*** It's a popular alternative character interpretation but not canon.
141	* The plan was for Romeo to hang out in Mantua until the Montagues and Friar Laurence could convince the Prince to pardon him, at which point he would have been reunited with Juliet. Juliet running off with him immediately would have ruined that. As to the sex...come on, this was their wedding night. It's not like even the most prudish would object to them wanting to get one night together.
142	** He was in no danger in Mantua. If they'd gone there together, they could have had all the nights/days/afternoons they pleased with nobody to bother them.
143	*** Yes, but if Juliet had run away with him to Mantua, that would have completely ruined any chance of their marriage ending the feud and instead become yet another reason for Montagues and Capulets to kill each other. Friar Laurence was still hopeful that once tempers cooled over the latest incident, he would be able to get Romeo a pardon and find a way to get the Capulets to accept the marriage.
144	** Nobody heard them because the Nurse is on their side -- a la ''Film/ShakespeareInLove''. She could come up with something.
145	* You don't ''have'' to scream during sex, especially when you ''know'' you're doing it in a house other people are in. It has...never mind.
146	** What? What happened?
147	*** Two possible explanations: 1) That's a bigass house, so they're far enough where no one else would hear it or, 2) they somehow managed to "do it" quietly, which isn't impossible.
148
149	[[WMG: Does anyone else feel really sorry for Paris?]]
150	Everyone else in some sense caused his/her own death. Romeo and Juliet were suicides. Tybalt went around starting so many fights that he had to have had the life expectancy of a goldfish. Mercutio, while not as hot-headed as Tybalt, still started the fight that killed him. Paris, though, fell in love with a girl and courted her in the way his society found acceptable. Then, after she died, he tried to arrest a known criminal who was breaking into her tomb. Hard to see why he deserved to get skewered.
151	** One can feel sorry for him, though that may be due to the fact that for some who played him in a production once. But it's also interesting to note that at the end of the play, almost none of the characters even acknowledge his death. Granted, the families are grieving for their kids, but Capulet seemed to have a certain fondness for the man earlier. Ultimately, the girl Paris was hoping to marry cheats on him, then apparently dies; when he goes to her resting place to grieve, he finds the man who killed his friend, who kills ''him'', and all anyone can do is mope about the tragic death of his killer.
152	*** Technically Juliet did not cheat on him. She had no say in marrying him, and they hadn't even ''met'' at the point she got with Romeo. So it's not as though they were in a loving, committed relationship.
153	* That's the point -- Paris was a good guy who just wanted to marry Juliet and in no way deserved his fate. Romeo himself realizes this and grieves over his body. It's like the death of Paris as symbolic of how crazy and out of control the entire situation had gotten.
154	** Agree with that, but perhaps it has an additional, important dramatic purpose. Paris is in the play to explain why they can't get Lord Capulet's permission to marry and end the feud: he's promised her to his friend, and a noble friend at that, and can't lose honor by going back on his promise. If Paris is alive after the children die, then Capulet is at least half worried about the loss of honor, since he couldn't control his daughter and now can't give her to him the way he said he would. With Paris dead, there is no room for wounded pride (of the kind that leads to "honor killings" even today) but only grief. And that grief is what makes the warring families finally end the feud.
155	* Paris is a creep who wants to marry a thirteen-year-old girl and [[PaedoHunt implies he likes them even younger.]] I'd hardly call him a sympathetic character.
156
157	[[WMG: ''Romeo + Juliet'', head vs. heart.]]
158	Why did Juliet [[ItWasHisSled shoot herself]] in the head instead of [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic the heart]]? Was it some sort of commentary about... something, or was it just that people usually don't shoot themselves in the heart?
159	* Well, these days we all know that emotions actually happen in the brain rather than the heart, so... maybe it is still symbolic?
160	** Thinking about it further, perhaps the symbolism is that their love wasn't from the heart, because they rushed into their relationship (although that probably demands Juliet shooting herself in the vagina, but perhaps that's TOO symbolic.)
161	* [[MathematiciansAnswer Yes.]] Suicide by shooting in the heart is sufficiently uncommon for it to have been a plot twist in a Literature/LordPeterWimsey novel.
162	* Uh... Juliet ''[[ComicallyMissingThePoint stabbed]]'' herself. Also, a brain injury means that you're out of your misery immediately. A heart injury means that you get to remain conscious while [[NightmareFuel each and every one of your cells]] ''[[ToThePain starves]]''. Juliet was already miserable and just wanted the pain to end.
163	** This section is referring to the Baz Luhrmann movie, in which Juliet shoots herself in the head with a gun instead of stabbing herself with a dagger.
164
165	[[WMG: Romeo and Juliet's ages]]
166	* In modern productions, both of them will be around 16-19 ([[DawsonCasting or older]]), but in the play, Juliet is 13-14 and Romeo is only a little older. Why? Is it to stop the {{Squick}} factor?
167	** It would imagine partly for the squick factor, yes, but partly because Shakespeare is pretty tough material; there are probably not many thirteen-year-old actresses capable of handling it, if there are any at all. Plus, there's the general tendency of stage performances to cast child/teen roles with actors [[DawsonCasting several years older than the character is supposed to be]].
168	*** Pretty much all the reasons for DawsonCasting apply to stage productions. Things like work hours regulations, school requirements, acting experience, etc. are all still relevant for professional productions.
169	** Just so you know, in the source material, they were on the older end. Romeo was 18-20 and Juliet 16-18. Shakespeare made Juliet as young as 13 to drop the anvil on how awful child marriage was. Since as a society we know that now, no need for a 13-year-old Juliet.
170	*** IIRC, she was about 14ish and Romeo was a little older, by, at least, a few years.
171
172	[[WMG: In the 1996 movie, ''Romeo + Juliet'', why does Juliet just sit there and watch Romeo die?]]
173	Romeo is thrashing around for about 5 minutes after Juliet wakes up. She's awake and rational enough to figure out that he's taken poison. So why doesn't she do something about it: induce vomiting, scream for help, run for a phone and call 911, anything? Instead, she just watches him die while planning her own suicide. It makes her creepy.
174	* It would make it more realistic, but less tragic. Also, she was probably panicking from it and still a bit woozy from the poison she'd taken.
175	* He's hardly 'thrashing around'. Also, she sees him drinking the poison and probably twigs that there is absolutely nothing she can do about his impending death. Remember 'if you had the strength of twenty men, it would dispatch you straight.' Inducing vomiting would make it worse; screaming for help, running to a phone? She's supposed to be DEAD! Also, 'Romeo. Is. Banished!', so anyone she could get to for help probably wouldn't be too happy to see him.
176	** Not just banished; banished specifically on pain of death. Romeo already had a manhunt after him when he entered the tomb -- if by some miracle Juliet could have gotten him some help, he'd be sentenced to death as soon as he was better. Speaking of that, ''they're in a tomb''. If no one heard her crying when he died or the gunshot from her shooting herself, they'd certainly not hear screams for help. And it wouldn't bet the phone reception would be great in there either. Not to mention, ''she's a young girl who has basically just woken up from a coma''!
177	*** In addition, the reception in the tomb was irrelevant. In 1996, cell phones were not ubiquitous, and it would have been unlikely for a teenage girl, even a rich one like Juliet, to have one. Even if Juliet did have one, her parents wouldn't have buried her with it. Romeo wouldn't be expected to have one she could use either. We know he doesn't, because Laurence tries to send him a letter instead. Juliet instead would have had to leave the tomb to look for a pay phone to call an ambulance (or to find someone to hunt for a phone on her behalf). This would have been tricky because of the 'just woken up from a coma' part.
178
179	[[WMG:Why didn't Juliet just ask to deliver the poison to Romeo himself and then run away with him?]]
180	* Okay, Juliet, you tell your mother that you're upset over Tybalt's death when you're really crying over Romeo's banishment, and your mother offers to send someone to poison Romeo; you say you say you want to mix the poison yourself, then Mommy Capulet announces your engagement to Paris and [[TooDumbToLive you decide to let the cat out of the bag about Romeo.]] To explain this to you slowly; you could have said you wouldn't feel right about being married when your cousin's killer lives, then run off with Romeo and live happily ever after.
181	** Yes, because people routinely would send 14-year-old posh girls to assassinate people, and would have just let her go on her own. That makes a ''ton'' of sense.
182	** Great plan. Too bad '''Juliet never even considered it'''. Lots of mistakes are made because people don't even ''realize'' that there's a better way to go about their business, let alone actually ''come up with'' a better plan.
183	*** She's a posh 14-year-old girl! She's not supposed to have Machiavellian planning skills in the first place! This is kind of the point of the entire play!
184	** Let's not forget that Friar Laurence (who is the only one actively helping Juliet at this point) has an ulterior motive: to get the two families to reconcile. Juliet running off with Romeo would have done exactly nothing to help that. If anything, it would just make things worse -- the Capulets could have a narrative that Romeo abducted her or something and the Montagues could say she convinced him to kill Tybalt and both would probably immediately execute plans to bring back their child and/or kill the other. There's also the fact that, as a daughter, Juliet was an extremely precious commodity to her parents. How precious? Paris is a kinsman of the Prince and he wants to marry Juliet, thus guaranteeing great social standing for the Capulets as a family. [[SarcasmMode But of course pretty sure her mother would be all too happy to send her 13-year-old daughter unescorted to a foreign city and completely ignore her not returning]]...
185
186	[[WMG:Why did Balthasar tell Romeo of Juliet's death?]]
187	Their love was secret. No one knew about their relationship other than themselves and Friar (and the Nurse, to recall correctly). To anyone who didn't know about their previous encounter, why would they think Romeo would care about a random girl from Verona dying?
188	* Because Romeo asked for news of Juliet. What does Romeo have to lose by having his servant know?
189	* It's shown later that Romeo is not above threatening to kill Balthasar, so perhaps he scared him into keeping the secret.
190
191	[[WMG:Why is Romeo allowed to love Rosaline but not Juliet?]]
192	He tells his friends that he loves Rosaline, but he keeps it a secret when he falls in love with Juliet. However, they're both Capulets.
193	* a) Mercutio and Benvolio tease Romeo endlessly about being in love with Rosaline; Romeo feels that it's actually serious with Juliet this time (well, more serious than Rosaline, anyways) -- "He jests at scars that never felt a wound" -- and decides not to bring it up in case they start in on him again. Friar Laurence ends up doing it for them, though.
194	* b) Rosaline is a Capulet, but Juliet is the head of the family's sole heir. Romeo is ''screwed'' if he openly admits anything.
195	** It's debatable whether he would actually have been screwed. The play goes out of its way to show that Lord Capulet had heard good things about Romeo ''specifically'', and had a good opinion of him -- whether this would have extended to marrying his daughter is obviously a different question, but given that the heads of both families had plenty of reason to want to end the feud, it's not totally impossible, either. It's very possible to read the secrecy and cloak-and-dagger planning of everyone in on the secret as another form of folly.
196	** Ah, yes, because allowing someone to attend your party without attacking them is obviously on the same level with "I would let you marry my daughter." Seriously, this reading that the old family is doing whatever they can to end the feud, probably it's projecting something onto the text that wasn't there.
197	** And Juliet has just been betrothed to Paris. She is the Capulets' only daughter, and the marriage with Paris is supposed to secure an alliance. Sure these things fell through all the time, but because the bride-to-be married someone else behind her family's back is not the ideal reason.
198
199	[[WMG: Why don't they just come out and say they're married?!]]
200	* Because the Montagues and Capulets were enemies? Because Juliet was already arranged to be married to Paris? Because they're idiots? Pick one, the play was pretty clear about it.
201	** They ain't idiots. Either of the first two reasons are good enough to make anyone hesitate before making such an announcement, especially after Juliet sees how her father totally blows his top when she asks him to ''delay'' her wedding.
202	** Juliet has been promised to Paris. You have to realise that a marriage was a sacred thing back in Shakespeare's day. Promising a child in marriage was forming an alliance with someone powerful, to gain them as an ally. This kind of thing gets lots of preparation and planning. So if Juliet comes out and says she married someone else, it not only means those plans go to waste, but the entire family looks bad from a political point of view. Lord Capulet especially suddenly looks like a fool who can't control his daughter -- who went off and got married behind his back. Her parents were probably hoping to gain power or favour by betrothing her to Paris, so her marrying Romeo means they won't get either.
203
204	[[WMG: Be some other name than Romeo.]]
205
206	Yeah, not getting this. Isn't the 'Montague' part the problem here?
207	* It's implied in the context. For example, people who mention "Bill" when talking about UsefulNotes/HillaryRodhamClinton are usually referring to UsefulNotes/BillClinton and not some other Bill.
208
209	[[WMG: Why Is Friar Laurence Such an Idiot?]]
210	* There was no need to fool around with poisons etc. just pop Juliet into a nunnery for safety and go straight to the Prince with the story of her marriage to Romeo then stand back and wait for the fireworks to stop. Prince Escalus will ''love'' this solution to his civil violence problem and the Capulets and Montagues are down to one heir apiece meaning sooner or later they are going to have to stop screaming and accept the marriage. Everybody wins! Except Shakespeare of course.
211	** And Friar Laurence was probably planning to do just that before Act 3, Scene 1. Being banished for murder kind of puts a crimp in your wedding plans. (Also your in-laws now hate you and want deadly revenge, but hey, that's pretty much par for the course.)
212	** What about her marriage to Paris? You think that idea will go quietly?
213	** If Juliet goes missing, the Capulets will search for her. And if they find her, which they probably will, the people who were helping hide her would be all too happy to tell on who orchestrated the whole thing. The safest solution is for Juliet to die and thus flee to Mantua to live with Romeo there.
214
215	[[WMG: What was Friar Laurence's plan?]]
216	* He says he's hoping that Romeo and Juliet's marriage will stop the feud, but how does he think that's going to happen if it's secret? Wouldn't them getting secretly married make the families angrier? What was he going to do if Juliet got pregnant? Didn't it occur to him that their parents would probably want to marry them off eventually?
217	** Romeo was to stay in Mantua, where Juliet would eventually join him. He was going to persuade the Pope to pardon Romeo after the heat had died down. Then presumably he would return, with Juliet seemingly restored to life. Perhaps Romeo would have told a story of having found medicine that healed her sickness, thereby gaining favour with the Capulets. Or Laurence would have them wait until their parents have died, and then they come back to unite the families.
218	** Before the fights with Tybalt caused everything to go completely off the rails, Friar Laurence was probably hoping to marry them secretly (so there could be no possibility of any objections) and then, at a suitable moment some point in the not-too-distant future, present them as a wedded couple to their families. The Prince had already declared an end (on pain of death -- Romeo's punishment was only lessened by the fact that Tybalt had killed Mercutio) to public feuding between the families so, from the Friar's perspective, no one would be able to get angry. He was pretty much banking on a "love conquers all" type scenario. As it is, it's implied that the marriage itself and Tybalt and Mercutio's death with Romeo's subsequent banishment all take place at best within one day of each other and most adaptations have the events occur within a few hours of each other.
219
220	[[WMG: Why was Romeo upset that Juliet was a Capulet, but not that Rosaline was?]]
221	* Romeo seems upset that Juliet was a Capulet ("O dear account! my life is my foe's debt!"), but he knew from reading Lord Capulet's invitation that Rosaline was also one of Lord Capulet's kin, and that didn't bother him at all.
222	** Because Juliet was Lord Capulet's daughter. Being in love with her carries slightly more weight than Rosaline. With Rosaline, a relationship would be tricky. With Juliet -- nigh impossible.
223	** Rosaline was also just a crush. Juliet was the real deal for him. He was just fantasising about Rosaline, whereas he honestly wanted to be with Juliet for real.
224	*** Actually, Rosaline might not be related to the Capulets by blood, instead she was related to Capulets by being ''aligned'' with them. That aside, Rosaline didn't reciprocate Romeo's feelings (she's taken a vow of chastity, for more context), while Juliet did return his feelings.
225
226
227	[[WMG: Didn't Tybalt start the fight which killed Mercutio?]]
228	To remember correctly, Tybalt started the fight which killed Mercutio. Perhaps the implication was/is that he was pissed off with the fact that Romeo and his friends dared to come to his Uncle's place for his cousin's (Juliet)'s basically engagement ball. And his uncle, Lord Capulet didn't allow him to fight Romeo in his house.
229	** Yes, and, IIRC, Tybalt got murdered in revenge.
230
231	[[WMG: Due to Juliet being the only child. Isn't Tybalt supposed to be Lord Capulet's heir?]]
232	There's the impression over the years that Tybalt was Lord Capulet's heir due to him having no (natural) and legal male heirs.

Context Headscratchers / RomeoAndJuliet