Thread by @GCSE_Macbeth

#SummerOfJuliet

Act 1 Sc 5

Here's a line I'm really obsessed with:

l.133
JULIET: Go ask his name. If he be married,
My grave is like to be my wedding bed.

Another absolute beauty of a quote to pick apart and revise.

1/

- First of all, dramatic irony. Juliet's biggest fear is that she has fallen in love with a married man. But of course, it's "ask his name" that is going to cause her the problems.

(although, of course, she will be the secretly married one soon).

2/

- Next, the foreshadowing. Juliet's grave isn't *quite* her wedding bed -- she gets her wedding bedding in Act 3 -- but certainly R&J will only be united publically in death.

Dramatic irony again -- we already know from the prologue that their love is "death-marked".

3/

- Now let's make it interesting. Let's get away from the whole-play structure and take it back to Juliet's character.

Why does Juliet herself make the link between love and death -- or sex and death -- so early and so clearly?

4/

First of all, she's not the only one. Romeo warns in 1.4 of "some consquence yet hanging in the stars". He also feels the hand of death upon him.

It fits with Juliet's character -- knowledgeable beyond her years -- that she knows the stakes of the game she's playing.

5/

She knows that as a young woman operating outside of her parents' aegis she is vulnerable. She knows that a liaison with the wrong man -- an adulterer, or a man from the wrong family -- spells the end of her honour and family life.

6/

I also wonder if people 400 years ago just lived in the presence of death more than we do today. We know from Lord C and Nurse's comments in Act 1 that Juliet carries a burden of love and hope that cannot be shared by untold dead brothers and sisters.

7/

Juliet's *life* is death-marked to an extent, not just her love.

I also think Shakespeare is making a choice about his characterisation of R&J and how we, as an audience, respond to them.

8/

They fall in love and lust uncontrollably, they act on it hastily. But it isn't just a game -- they know the consequences. Shakespeare wants us to feel the walls closing in all the way through the play. Their passion burns brighter because of the darkness behind it.

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