For my money, Juliet is practical, brave, and headstrong.
Here are some quotes to get you started on any one of these
characterizations.
In the opening of the balcony scene, she
displays her practical mind when, as Romeo stands below her window telling the audience
how much he loves her, she is considering the huge obstacle to that love -- he is a
Montague and her sworn enemy:
O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou
Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy
name.
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my
love
And I'll no longer be a
Capulet.
Juliet's practical
turn of mind is revealed in her first words in the famous balcony scene. She speaks not
about how dreamy-eyed in love she is, but rather the practical events that must happen
in order for them to be together.
A good example of her
bravery comes quite late in the play. She has just been kicked out of her home by her
father (if she refuses to marry Paris) and had her closest confidant, The Nurse, tell
her she should marry Paris and forget Romeo. She decides to go completely alone to the
Friar and beg him for remedy. If he has none, she vows to kill herself or undergo any
other gruesome act, rather than marry Paris:
O, bid me leap, rather than marry
Paris,
From off the battlements of any
tower
Or walk in thievish ways, or bid me
lurk
Where serpents are. Chain me with roaring
bears,
Or hide me nightly in a
charnel-house.
Ultimately,
she commits a huge act of bravery, when she drinks the potion that the Friar gives her,
not knowing if it will kill her or merely cause her to seem
dead.
Her headstrong nature can actually be seen in the
events I have described above, and in her determination to marry Romeo, even though he
is her family's enemy. She is the one that pushes for marriage, and one wonders if
Romeo would have had the gumption without her headstrong presence behind
him.
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