"Traditional patriarchal female mold" is quite a phrase.
However, if you are wondering how Juliet goes against the traditional role women in
Shakespeare's day were expected to play, and/or how she steps outside the bounds of
conventional behaviour expected of a young girl, there are many
examples.
The first happens in Act I, Scene iii when we
first meet her. She is being prepared by her mother to meet a potential suitor at the
party their family will host that evening. After a long and glowing build up of Paris
by both Lady Capulet and the Nurse, Juliet simply
says:
I'll
look to like, if looking liking move,But no more deep will
I endart mine eyeThan your consent gives strength to make
it fly.
Basically, Juliet has
says, if he looks good to me, I'll see if I like him, but your endorsement of him
actually makes that less likely. So, she is making it loud and clear that she intends
to follow her own heart and that the support of her mother doesn't make a hill of beans
to her. This point of view was completely nontraditional in Shakespeare's day, when
young women had very little, if any say in who they
married.
Juliet continues this headstrong behaviour in two
significant scenes: In Act II, Scene ii, she is actually the one that "proposes" to
Romeo:
Three
words, dear Romeo, and goodnight indeed.If that thy bent
of love be honorable,Thy purpose
marriage......all my fortunes at thy foot I'll
lay,And follow thee my lord throughout the
world.
Even today, it's a bit
unusual for the woman to do the "asking" for the man's hand in
marriage.
But the moment that is potentially the most
significant is Act III, Scene v, when Capulet tells her that she will marry Paris and
she basically replies, "Thanks, but no thanks." She stands strong even as her father
shuns her from his sight saying:
readability="10">
...Hang! Beg! Starve! Die in the
streets!
For by my soul I'll ne'er acknowledge
thee,
Nor what is mine shall never do thee
good.
Going against her
father's commandment to marry Paris would have left Juliet with grim possibilities. Her
father would have been right on the mark when he predicted she would beg, starve, and
die in the streets. So she steps completely outside the bounds of female propriety here
in order to protect her secret marriage to Romeo.
No comments:
Post a Comment