® ENGLISH GCSE – ROMEO AND JULIET
Lord and Lady Capulet
® Lord & Lady Capulet make more appearances than Lord and Lady
Montague perhaps showing the levels of freedom each give their
child. Lord Capulet is a typical Patriarch, and the Elizabethan
audience may have viewed him as a good father as he tries to
protect Juliet by arranging her marriage with Paris, who is a nice guy
and well suited for Juliet (this was common in that time).
® During Elizabethan times family honour was very important and is
what Shakespeare portrays through the Montague Vs Capulet feud.
Each family member remains loyal by doing everything to defend
their family. Romeo and Juliet’s suicide shows the dangers of allowing
family honour to consume people
® Lady Capulet acts in an unconventional way. She has a more tense
and formal relationship with Juliet instead of an open and loving one
as denoted when she has to call the nurse back in. In wealthy families
this would be seen as normal to employ a nurse to look after their
child & it was also normal to marry and give birth young since we find
out Lady Capulet was fourteen when she married Juliet
QUALITIES OF LORD CAPULET:
Patriarchal:
® Lord Capulet is a product of his time and he’s presented like this from
the first time we see him. He disregards women, both his wife to some
extent and Juliet. He doesn’t have a very close relationship with the
nurse and treats her like a slave (because she technically is). It
wouldn’t be surprising to the Elizabethan audience that he oppresses
his daughter and disregards her as she is technically his ‘property’
perhaps shows his materialism. If anything, Lord Capulet tries to be a
good father and let Paris marry her to cheer Juliet up because he
thinks she’s really sad about Tybalt’s death and not Romeo’s exile.
Lord Capulet starts off as a kind man and that’s what we first see, as
he tries to define his family honour, then as the play shifts to the
tragedy end Capulet’s personality also shifts and makes him seem
more abusive
o ‘I think she will be ruled in all aspects by me’
o ‘Disobedient wretch’ – Act 3 Scene 1
o ‘My child is yet a stranger in the world’ – Act 1 Scene 2
o ‘Nurse, where’s my daughter? Call her forth to me’ – Act 3 Scene 5
®
Copyright © 2022 Revision Guru | All rights reserved
Lord and Lady Capulet
® Lord & Lady Capulet make more appearances than Lord and Lady
Montague perhaps showing the levels of freedom each give their
child. Lord Capulet is a typical Patriarch, and the Elizabethan
audience may have viewed him as a good father as he tries to
protect Juliet by arranging her marriage with Paris, who is a nice guy
and well suited for Juliet (this was common in that time).
® During Elizabethan times family honour was very important and is
what Shakespeare portrays through the Montague Vs Capulet feud.
Each family member remains loyal by doing everything to defend
their family. Romeo and Juliet’s suicide shows the dangers of allowing
family honour to consume people
® Lady Capulet acts in an unconventional way. She has a more tense
and formal relationship with Juliet instead of an open and loving one
as denoted when she has to call the nurse back in. In wealthy families
this would be seen as normal to employ a nurse to look after their
child & it was also normal to marry and give birth young since we find
out Lady Capulet was fourteen when she married Juliet
QUALITIES OF LORD CAPULET:
Patriarchal:
® Lord Capulet is a product of his time and he’s presented like this from
the first time we see him. He disregards women, both his wife to some
extent and Juliet. He doesn’t have a very close relationship with the
nurse and treats her like a slave (because she technically is). It
wouldn’t be surprising to the Elizabethan audience that he oppresses
his daughter and disregards her as she is technically his ‘property’
perhaps shows his materialism. If anything, Lord Capulet tries to be a
good father and let Paris marry her to cheer Juliet up because he
thinks she’s really sad about Tybalt’s death and not Romeo’s exile.
Lord Capulet starts off as a kind man and that’s what we first see, as
he tries to define his family honour, then as the play shifts to the
tragedy end Capulet’s personality also shifts and makes him seem
more abusive
o ‘I think she will be ruled in all aspects by me’
o ‘Disobedient wretch’ – Act 3 Scene 1
o ‘My child is yet a stranger in the world’ – Act 1 Scene 2
o ‘Nurse, where’s my daughter? Call her forth to me’ – Act 3 Scene 5
®
Copyright © 2022 Revision Guru | All rights reserved
