Juliet as a Strong Character in Shakespeare\'s

Juliet as a Strong Character

In Shakespeare's play, Romeo and Juliet, Juliet emerges as a strong woman because he is willing to follow her heart to whatever end to get what she wants. She is not happy doing what her family thinks she should do and has enough strength to know what she wants and do what she must do to get it. We are told that we do not get what we want, we get what we focus on and Juliet is an example of just how focused an individual can be. She abandons conventional ideas regarding love and marriage when she realizes she is in love with Romeo and she becomes focused with a laser-like beam on getting what she wants with him. Romeo pales in comparison to Juliet when it comes to strength and assertiveness. Through Juliet, Shakespeare gives all women the freedom to be strong and assertive.

Shakespeare gives Juliet characteristics that are more masculine and less feminine than most girls her age. Like many young women in her time, she had little or no control over the major events of her life. One of these events is marriage and upon meeting Romeo, she knows she wants to marry none other. Her family has other plans so she must be aggressive and focused to make things work out in her favor. What we discover is that she is not threatened or put off by this in any way. It is as if love empowers her to be a stronger woman. She is willing to sacrifice anything to go where she wants to go. We see this in the balcony scene when she declares her love for Romeo. Juliet is not afraid and she moves forward with establishing some kind of plan to be with him. This is not to say she does not experience fear; she does but she conquers it and goes ahead with her plan to be with Romeo. Nothing illustrates this more than when she acts independently. Even when things go awry, she keeps her head together. Sometimes she is the one guiding the ship when it seems that Romeo should be the one with his hands on the wheel. Nevertheless, she does what must be done to be with Romeo, including defying her parents and running away. Her words are often ironic as the demonstrate her strength of character. We see strength and courage when she tells the Friar:

Chain me with roaring bears;

Or shut me nightly in a charnel-house,

O'er cover'd quite with dead men's rattling bones,

With reeky shanks, and yellow chapless skulls;

Or bid me go into a new made grave

And hide me with a dead man in his shroud. (IV.i.80-5)

Here Juliet faces death. If only in her mind, we see that her mind has indeed taken her to a place where things might not turn out as she hopes. It is ironic that she should utter these words but they prove that she is willing to do what she feels she must do to achieve her goal.

One way to understand the scope of Juliet's strength is to contrast her character with Romeo. Romeo challenges many conventional notions associated with manliness because he is sensitive and cannot control his passions. He also allows his emotions to wreck havoc in his world. His impulsiveness gets him into trouble more than once and he often has fits of emotion when it comes to attempting to cope with issues in his life. He is immature and being in love only makes Romeo worse than he already is. His bizarre behavior gets him banished from Verona, which only makes things much worse for him. Killing Tybalt is a severe error in judgment that makes Romeo's present situation poor no matter which way he looks at it. He chooses to stay in Verona rather than go to Mantua. To put it simply, Romeo is immature and does not want to take responsibility for his actions. Romeo allows love to cloud his thinking. He cannot see any peril in the future because he keeps thinking of Juliet. With him, Shakespeare proves how love is blind and how it turns people into fools who only think love's shadows are "rich in joy!" (V.i.154). Romeo does not care to be a man at this time in his life; he would rather be a fool in love. Romeo simply cannot control his emotions. Shakespeare uses the Nurse and the Friar to develop this idea. When the Nurse sees Romeo crying, as she tells him to "be a man" (III.iii.89), which clearly points to the fact that she does not approve. He tries to compose himself but only ends up stating that he might take his own life. The Friar accuses Romeo of acting "mishaved and sullen" (III.iii.144) in regard to the Prince's order. Interestingly, Romeo is aware of how he must look to thers, admitting he is "effeminate" (III.i.115) when it comes to Juliet. Important to this thought is the fact that what we think makes Romeo effeminate is different from Romeo's explanation. It is easy to see how love can make one act strangely but Romeo's unwillingness to fight makes him seem weak in comparison to his strong-willed Juliet, who would probably not think twice to fight. Romeo does redeem himself with Tybalt's murder, but he still lacks confidence. He never seems to muster enough passion and strength as Juliet does.