Compare the soliloquies of Romeo and Juliet when they are facing death(4.3 and 5.1), explaining what they reveal about the two characters. ...

While both Juliet and Romeo act out of love for the other
in their considerations of death, the circumstances and emotions for each differ.  For
Juliet, in Act IV, Scene 3, contemplates what will occur after she consumes the vial of
mandrake that Friar Laurence has concocted in order for her to appear as though she is
dead while he tries to notify Romeo. 

In this
contemplation, Juliet has four fears: 

1. She worries that
the vial will not work and she will have to marry Paris, so she places a dagger beside
her:

I have a
faint cold fear thrills through my
veins (4.3.16)

2. Since the
Friar stands to be in trouble for having married her, she worries that the vial is
really poison and will kill her:

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What if it be a poison, which the
Friar

Subtly hath minister'd to have me
dead....

I fear it is:  and
yet, methinks, it should
not...(4.3.25-29)

3. She
worries that she will awaken before Romeo gets there and she will
suffocate:

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How if, when I am laid into the
tomb,

I wake before the time that
Romeo

Come to redeem me?  there's a fearful
point! (4.3.32-34)

4. Juliet
worries that if she wakes early and does survive, she may go made surrounded by bones
and the dead body of Tybalt and kill herself,
anyway.:

The
horrible conceit of death and night,

Together with the
terror of the place....

O, if I wake, should I not be
distraught

Environed with all these hideous
fears?
(4.3.39-52)

On the other
hand, Romeo has a singleness of purpose and absolutely no fear.  When he hears that
Juliet is dead, he wants no more from life and becomes determined to meet Juliet in
death.  There is no conjecture, no self-debate with Romeo. He finds a poor apothecary
and tells the man that what he gives him--gold--is "worse poison to men's souls" than
what the apothecary gives him:

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I sell thee poison; thou has sold me
none.

Farewell, buy food and get thyself in
flesh.

Come, cordial and not
poison, go with me

To Juliet's grave; for
there I must use thee.
(5.1.86-89)

The apprehension
of Juliet and the impetuous assuredness of Romeo are certainly in keeping with their
characters.  For, throughout the play, Romeo has been the one to initiate action; he
approaches Juliet, he runs to the Friar to tell him of his love for Juliet, he
intemperately slays Tybalt, and he assumes that Juliet is, indeed, dead without having
any word from Friar Laurence.  Juliet, on the other hand, has been more cautious than
Romeo, asking him to just hold her hand and not try to kiss her at her party, begging
him not to swear his love on the inconstant moon, telling him of her fears that there
love is "too rash."