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Yasith Diunugala

Ms. Woelke

IB HL English

22 May 2024

The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare shows the conflict between

love and the fragility of this love. In this play, the characters, Romeo and Juliet, have to protect

their secret love due to the conflicting hatred between their two families. They have already

married secretly and none but Juliet’s Nurse and Friar Lawrence know. However, Juliet has been

forced to agree to marry another man by her family, she has planned to escape from her family

and to go to Romeo. In Juliet’s soliloquy, she uses numerous examples of figurative language

like similes, personification, and rhetorical questions to express the conflicting and frenzied state

of mind at this moment.

As she first thinks about drinking the potion Juliet, fears the result of the potion leading

to a fear of not being able to see her loved ones. As her mother and her nurse leave, Juliet says

that she has “ a faint cold fear thrills through my veins, That almost freezes up the heat of life,”

(Shakespeare IV.iii.14-13). Juliet uses the tactile imagery of the freezing of her veins and life to

show her fear of leaving her family and home for her true love, Romeo. This freezing is used by

Shakespeare to illustrate the loss of her family. This further shows an initial fear of Juliet leaving

for Romeo and not having a connection to her family. On her bed, Juliet ponders the

effectiveness of the potion, “the dismal scene I need must act alone. Come, vial. What if this

mixture does not work at all?” (Shakespeare IV.iii.20-22). Juliet personifies the vial showing her

troubled mindset and her need for company, how she is not a lonely being. She questions the

vial, asking if she can drink it, which shows her doubts about the content in it. This
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personification is further important as it signifies a shift in her tone as she questions taking the

potion. She thinks of her faith if she doesn’t take the vial, “Shall I be married then tomorrow

morning?” (Shakespeare IV.iii.23) She questions herself and her faith in what happens if the vial

is not effective. This is important because if the vial doesn’t work, she will be forced to marry

Paris to please her parents and her family. Therefore, she is conflicted in her feelings of love

towards her husband and love, Romeo, and to her family and their wishes. In conclusion, in the

first part of the excerpt, Juliet has a conflict within herself between her love for Romeo and her

family, this is signified through the use of imagery, personification, and rhetorical questions.

As she continues to contemplate her decision, Juliet questions if Friar Lawrence is giving

her poison to save his holiness and thinks she might wake up in the Capulet burial vault. When

putting down her dagger as a second action, she thinks, “What if it be a poison, which the friar

Subtly hath ministered to have me dead” (Shakespeare IV.iii.25-26). The rhetorical question

shows her doubt that the vial might be poison to kill her for going against Christianity and being

married twice. This shows the mistrust she develops for everyone as she is paranoid about her

life. This is important because this mistrust and paranoia is exemplified by those who know the

truth like the nurse and Friar. When she is sure that the Friar is truthful she comes across that she

might, “wake before the time that Romeo Come to redeem [her]? there's a fearful point! Shall I

not, then, be stifled in the vault” (Shakespeare IV.iii.32-34). This new question shows that she

might suffocate from the low amount of air underground and the stench of dead bodies of many

generations. This shows the possibility of the ways in which the plan will fail, with Juliet

potentially dying when she wakes up with no one there. She is doubtful that the vial will make

her wake up again, and she is fearful of suffocating from the foul air. This signifies the fear for

her life as she develops and acts on her plan. She is further frightened by the thought of being
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inside the vault with “The horrible conceit of death and night, Together with the terror of the

place” (Shakespeare IV.iii.38-39). This shows a visual imagery of the vault as being full of death

and terror. This epitomizes the fear of death that Juliet develops, being inside the vault also

creates a claustrophobic sense for Juliet. It is further important because her ancestors will look

down upon her for going against the will of her family. To conclude, through her frenzied state of

mind, Juliet creates a sense of paranoia and fear for her life, as shown through imagery and

rhetorical questions.

At the end of the soliloquy, Juliet is pondering about different things that might happen in

the Capulet vault when she is placed there in the morning. She thinks of going to the vault where

she remembers, “Where, for these many hundred years, the bones Of all my buried ancestors are

packed: Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in the earth” (Shakespeare IV.iii.41-43). This

hyperbole exaggerates how Tybalt and her ancestors might look like when Juliet wakes up in the

vault. This shows a fear of the dead as she is bothered by the faces of her dead ancestors like

Tybalt, and this is caused by the guilt of loving and marrying Romeo who is a Montague. When

Juliet thinks she might suffocate in the vault, she imagines, “So early waking, what with

loathsome smells, And shrieks like mandrakes' torn out of the earth, That living mortals, hearing

them, run mad” (Shakespeare IV.iii.47-49). This thought shows a simile of shrieks to mandrakes,

showing an allusion to extremely loud creatures from myths and legends. This also shows that

Juliet is fearful for her family as they figure that she is gone from the vault, acting out of love for

her Romeo. This is further important as all this results in her state of mind as she is fearful of

what will happen to her love and her family. To end her soliloquy, Juliet drinks the potion for

“Romeo, I come! This do I drink to thee.” (Shakespeare IV.iii.60-61) This shows a shift in

Juliet’s tone as she focuses solely on her lasting and forever love for her Romeo. This
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exemplifies how her love for Romeo is greater than the loyalty she feels for her family. This is

important because this paints the shift in tone from questioning her decisions for her family to

keeping with her decisions in loving Romeo. In conclusion, through the use of shifts in tone,

allusions, and hyperboles, Juliet shows a change in her mindset from frantic to focus on one goal.

In conclusion, Juliet from The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare uses

different figurative language to express her contrasting thoughts. Juliet uses personification and

imagery to show her doubts about the potion working and not seeing her family again. She also

uses rhetorical questions to express that the potion might be poison, and the foul air might

suffocate her. Also, Juliet uses simile and hyperbole to convey her horror of the vault. It can be

said that Juliet is going crazy with fear and confusion about the possible future, will she live or

will she die again and again? Also, she sees ghosts of Tybalt coming back from the vault to haunt

Romeo, showing how she was driven mad. In the soliloquy, her tone starts from doubtful and

fearful to mistrust to acceptance. Juliet’s mind changes from a rational person’s mind to an

irrational person’s mind because of her love for Romeo.