Romeo and Juliet Marriage Quotes Page 3
Citations follow this format: (Act.Scene.Line). Line numbers correspond to the 2008 Norton edition of the play.
| Quote #7 FRIAR LAURENCE |
Did we mention that Romeo and Juliet are really, really excited about getting hitched? Here, Romeo can hardly contain himself as he declares that he doesn't care what happens to him after he's married to Juliet (even death), so long as he can "call her mine." (Yep, Shakespeare is foreshadowing the young couple's deaths here.)
We think literary critic Stephen Greenblatt says it best when he notes that "Romeo and Juliet's depiction of the frantic haste of the rash lovers blends together humor, irony, poignancy, and disapproval, but Shakespeare conveys above all a deep inward understanding of what it feels like to be young, desperate to wed, and tormented by delay" (Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, 122).
| Quote #8 Nurse |
When Juliet's Nurse says that any man lucky enough to marry Juliet "shall have the chinks," she means that he'll make a lot of money. Juliet's parents have plenty of dough and Juliet, an only child, will have a large dowry. In the 16th century, marriage was often seen as an economic transaction. But, as we soon learn, Romeo and Juliet don't feel this way. Keep reading…
| Quote #9 JULIET |
When Juliet rushes into Friar Laurence's cell (room) to get hitched to Romeo, she expresses her devotion to Romeo in one the sweetest and most passionate ways possible – by declaring that her love is so great that she "cannot sum up" (express or count) even "half" of her love for Romeo.
It seems like Juliet's use of an economic metaphor (her love=wealth) is Shakespeare's way of drawing our attention to the fact that Romeo and Juliet are NOT marrying for money. While many of the play's characters (the Nurse, the Capulets, Paris) see marriage as a means of securing wealth and status, Romeo and Juliet marry because they're madly in love.
