SUGGESTED EXPLANATIONS FOR QUESTIONS RAISED IN CLASS

Dear S4s

I intended to go through this in class with you after the MYE but seeing as how some people are nervous about the Lit MYE paper, I thought this might help you as you revise.

Note though that not all the questions here are relevant to the MYE paper. They are meant to be of some help to those who are reading the play for the first time or revisiting the different Acts and trying to figure out certain key questions.

Please remember that I am contactable via email/Twitter/FormSpring if you need to make any clarification. 

Thank you to all Lit Reps for helping me out with the dissemination of information! 

page 99 Mercutio says ‘he is wise….’ Why is there dramatic irony here?
You need to know what ‘dramatic irony’ is. The definition of dramatic irony is a situation that is ironic because the audience knows something that the characters themselves do not. Hence, there is a gap between what the characters on stage believe and what the audience knows to be true. For example, when Romeo and Juliet fall in love, they believe (like most young lovers, even in real life) that their love is meant to last forever. Ironically, the audience already knows through the Prologue that the lovers are doomed to a tragic end.

In this case, Mercutio’s words that ‘(Romeo) is wise…’ is ironic as Romeo has NOT been wise. Despite knowing that his family is sworn enemies with the Capulets, he has chosen to fall in love with (yet another!) a Capulet. Not only is he content to admire Juliet from afar, he has in fact tacitly proposed marriage to her!



page 114 what is the pun on light from Romeo? And what is he trying to say on the line ‘love…. Schoolboy….. heavy lookss’
Here, there is no pun on the word ‘light’… All Romeo is saying that Juliet’s radiance, which as he earlier compared to the brilliance of the sun that lights up the entire universe, is something that he desires to see all the time.  

There is parallelism in the sentences that Roemo uses subsequently. Students want to stop studying as much as lovers want to spend all their time together and not leave each other at all.  Note the word ‘toward’ is repeated and links the two disparate ideas together.

To paraphrase:

A lover goes to his lover the way school boys hurry to leave their books (studies). But a lover leaving his lover is like a school boy who heads to school with heavy steps and a heavy heart.

pg 115 why does Juliet say to kill with much cherishing?

Here, Juliet compares Romeo to ‘a wanton’s bird’- a young spoilt child’s most favoured pet, in that had she a choice, she would not let Romeo stray too far away or out of her sight.

‘cherishing’ here can be replaced with the word ‘loving’… Juliet implies that she would possibly suffocate/smother Romeo with her love. This could be a possible foreshadowing for how the intensity and recklessness of their love is ultimately what brings about Romeo and Juliet’s undoing.  

page 121-122 what does Friar say about salt water, sun old groans etc

Here, the Friar is rebuking Romeo for his recklessness and haste in falling out of love with Rosaline ‘Is Rosaline, that thou dids’t love so dear / So soon forsaken?’ and replacing her with Juliet.

He is recalling the times when Romeo has cried over Rosaline’s lack of response to his feelings and his ‘love’. Friar Lawrence rebukes Romeo: ‘what a deal of brine / Hath washed thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline.’ and says that the tears were ‘thrown away in waste’.

Basically, Friar Lawrence is implying that Romeo has ‘seasoned’ love with his tears. He has attached emotions to the concept of Love although he was not in love with Rosaline, merely infatuated with her. (unrequited love)

pg 133 what is Romeo saying by ‘I am the youngest of that name, for fault of a worse’

At that moment that Nurse is looking for Romeo, he is the most recent one present there (the ‘youngest’- only implies the most recent). Perhaps there was a Romeo before him and there may be more people named Romeo after him, but at that moment, he was the only ‘Romeo’ around.

pg 138 what is the point of using 'sententious'?

Here is another example of malapropism. Its affect is comedic and reminds the audience that the Nurse is not very educated and is thus, a comic character. Midway through her lengthy explanation of how Juliet is being courted by Paris, she suddenly jumped to how the word ‘rosemary’ and the name ‘Romeo’ share the same initial sound /r/, which is incidentally the same sound that a dog makes. The connection is negligible (and pointless!) and shows the audience how Nurse is a garrulous character who prattles on and on without knowing exactly what she is saying.   

pg 141 what is the flower of courtesy?

The question rather, is ‘who’ the Nurse is referring to.  Recall that Paris was described as ‘a flower…a very flower’ (p.60) by Nurse and Lady Capulet.  Here, Nurse is making that same comparison between Romeo and Paris.  She is saying that although Romeo does not quite measure up to Paris, he has his own merits


pg 244 last line (Lord Capulet-‘No, not a whit……….been sick’.) Is he trying to say that Juliet’s wedding is for a great cause OR for reputation OR Juliet’s happiness?
Note the context. Lines cannot be taken in isolation.

In the subsequent lines, Lady Capulet says that she knows how he has been a woman chaser when he was younger- this could be the ‘lesser cause’ that Lord Capulet talks about.
What is going on here is that Lord Capulet is protesting Nurse’s earlier rebuke that he should sleep: ‘Get you to bed; faith you’ll be sick tomorrow.’ He responds by saying that he used to stay up far later into the night when he was younger, for more trivial causes.  And it did not make him sick J


pg 246 last line- ‘the bridegroom he is come already’ – what is the dramatic irony here?
Juliet is already married to Romeo. So, ironically, Paris is not the ‘groom’ although everyone on stage at that moment (except Nurse who is sworn to secrecy), believes this to be true.


pg 249 Lord Capulet: ‘Accursed time! Unfortunate old man!’- is he blaming himself now?
It seems as though he is bewailing his fate and the tragedy of having his only child die even before he is able to wed her to a suitable man.


page 250 Lord Capulet loses everything?
Yes, the sense of loss here is absolute. Without Juliet, everything is meaningless. All his hopes rested on Juliet. Recall (p.48) ‘She is the hopeful lady of my earth’. Juliet’s death makes everything Lord Capulet has on Earth, pale into nothingness.


pg 251 Lord Capulet : ‘my soul and not my child!’ and ‘my joys are buried’ – is he thinking about himself only? And is nurse sincere? ‘o woeful day’ or ‘hateful day’ repeated excessively.
Lord Capulet:  He is reacting in the only way he knows how. We are not able to say definitively that this is selfish of him as we do sense that there is a real loss behind all his words. He is infinitely affected by Juliet’s death and the loss that her death brings with it. He no longer has a child to carry on the family name. At his advanced age, the chance of him fathering another is close to nought.

Nurse:  She seems to be over-reacting but based on what we know of her closeness to Juliet, her grief would be understandable. Her maternal relation with Juliet makes her grief possibly keener than Lady Capulet even. Her words seem excessive and repetitious but Nurse has a tendency to repeat herself, so this may be expected.


pg 254 What is the irony on Friar’s statement: ‘The heavens do …….. high will’
Irony: What do we as the audience (and the Friar) know about the situation, that the other characters do not?

Like us, Friar Lawrence knows that Juliet is not truly dead. She is in a state of feigned death as a result of consuming the potion given to her by the Friar. Thus, her ‘death’ is not a result of ‘heavens…high will’. Rather, it is a result of human intervention, and decisions that were made by Juliet and the Friar himself.


pg 275 why is there talking about a ring from Romeo?
Romeo wedded Juliet and in the process, a ring would have been give or exchanged.


pg 277 Here tomb is described as ‘detestable maw, thou womb of death……..rotten jaws’. Can we say both metaphor and personification is used?
Both personification and metaphor are imagery (tools that help paint a picture of something).  Here, the tomb is painted as something that has consumed Juliet who is ‘the dearest morsel of the earth’.  The tomb is like a creature that has fed on Juliet. The gates of the tomb are its jaws and the interior of the tomb is its stomach (which now contains Juliet).


Generally, what is point of summarising the sequence of events from Friar? Is it because he was like the ‘mastermind’ of the events?  
Friar Lawrence is the only other character that is aware of the marriage between Romeo and Juliet. He is the only other character apart from the Nurse that actually assisted the lovers in their decision making, which inadvertently led to the tragedy. Thus he is in the best position to explain to Prince Escalus what had happened. However, unlike the Nurse, Friar Lawrence by virtue of his position as a man of the cloth, is in a better position to rebuke the noble families of Montague and Capulet, almost without any fear of reprisal. Nurse, though possessing almost the same information (except for Juliet’s decision to consume the potion) is a servant of the Capulets. She would not therefore have the ‘authority’ to ‘preach’ to the nobles at the end of the play- to show them how their actions contributed to the eventual tragedy.


pg 296 Prince: ‘some shall be pardoned, and some punished’ who pardoned and who punished?
Pardoned- who do you think will not be held accountable for the events that took place? J

Punished- these are likely, the people who have already suffered from the losses brought about by the death of Romeo and Juliet.

Please remember that you will only need a

good working knowledge

of the play Romeo and Juliet for the MYE.

• You will need to know the characters and their contribution to events in the play.
• Themes will always be worked into questions, so feel free to study that as well.
• For PBQ, you will need to decipher language, and explain how language provide insight into a theme, or a character etc.  

There will be no surprises or questions designed to trip you up and make you scream in agony.

At least, I didn't plan it as such. Hee.

All the best! :)

Love

Ms.Annisa