In Romeo and Juliet
by William Shakespeare, I find the character of Capulet really interesting.
Capulet is Juliet’s father. His character in Act 3 scene 4 really struck me. In
this scene, Paris is asking Capulet to marry his daughter, Juliet. Juliet is
already married to Romeo who is a Montague. At this young age, it is expected
for girls Juliet’s age to be married and have a family. Women in this time
didn’t have very much say in decisions like whom they may marry. Capulet is
interested in Paris marrying Juliet and wants him to marry her this Thursday.
This surprised me a lot. I think this mostly surprised me
because of how Capulet has acted about marriage before. In the beginning of the
book, they were talking about Juliet marrying Paris and Capulet actually had a
monologue on how she should wait. In this monologue Capulet talked about how
age gives more wisdom to a person, so it would be smart to wait and also gave
some of the decision to Juliet. This made me respect Capulet as a father to
Juliet. It made me think that, especially in this time period, he respected his
daughter and her point of view. But now in 3.4 he is telling Paris to marry her
without Juliet even knowing. This makes me rethink my opinion on Capulet. Maybe
he wasn’t one respecting Juliet. I went back to the monologue and realized that
maybe he wasn’t as great after all. When you think about it, he was only
thinking about when she got married, but she would still be marrying Paris
under his rules. He seems like a really controlling father who is only looking
for reputation issues and not what his father wants.
Because of the movie and scene summary, I know that in the
next scene he makes Juliet marry Paris. In the movie he got really mad when she
didn’t want to. At this point, Lady Capulet didn’t even have a say. This makes
me think about women’s rights and how they were looked upon. And it also makes
me think about how maybe what Romeo and Juliet have might be considered true
love at the time period, or maybe the fact that they had rash love could’ve
been the excuse. but about Capulet, Capulet would’ve never cared about what
Romeo and Juliet may have had and wouldn’t have believed in true love because
true love wasn’t really a thing then. I wonder if the Capulets were ever in
love or if they just made a family off of what they’re parents wanted.
I think that in todays world, it doesn’t go to that extreme,
but there definitely are lots of controlling parents out there. A lot of times
parents only want their child to have a perfect life, and don’t want them to
marry or be in love with someone who isn’t ideal because it wouldn’t follow
what’s normal, and they’re may be more risks. This is like Romeo and Juliet because
they are in different families who are rivals.
