Name________________________________________ Classwork/Homework

Romeo and Juliet

Act Four

Answer in complete sentences.

Scene 1

1. What day and time of day is it during this scene?

2. Why is Friar Laurence reluctant to marry Paris

to Juliet?

3. How does Paris explain the sudden haste of the

marriage plans?

4. Describe Paris’ tone toward Juliet.

5. If Friar Laurence cannot help her, what does Juliet threaten to do?

6. Why does Friar Laurence think that Juliet will accept his plan? What are some of the things
she says she would rather do than marry Paris?

7. Describe the friar’s plan for Juliet.

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Scene 2

8. What is happening at the beginning of this scene?

9. What does Juliet say that makes her father happy?

10. How does Capulet change the wedding plans? How does this affect the plan?

11. What is Lady Capulet worried about, and how does Lord Capulet try to put her mind at rest?

12. Where does Lord Capulet go at the end of this scene?

Scene 3

13. What reason does Juliet give to the Nurse for wanting to be alone?

14. After Lady Capulet and the Nurse leave, what is Juliet’s first reaction?

15. What might we say about Juliet’s character at this point?

JULIET
What if this mixture do not work at all?
Shall I be married then to-morrow morning?
No, no: this shall forbid it: lie thou there.

What if it be a poison, which the friar [25]

Subtly hath minister'd to have me dead,

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Lest in this marriage he should be dishonour'd,
Because he married me before to Romeo?
I fear it is: and yet, methinks, it should not,
For he hath still been tried a holy man. [30]
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!
Shall I not, then, be stifled in the vault,
To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in, [35]
And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?
Or, if I live, is it not very like,
The horrible conceit of death and night,
Together with the terror of the place,--
As in a vault, an ancient receptacle, [40]
Where, for these many hundred years, the bones
Of all my buried ancestors are packed:
Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,
Lies festering in his shroud; where, as they say,
At some hours in the night spirits resort;-- [45]
Alack, alack, is it not like that I,
So early waking, what with loathsome smells,
And shrieks like mandrakes' torn out of the earth,
That living mortals, hearing them, run mad:--
O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught, [50]
Environed with all these hideous fears?
And madly play with my forefather's joints?
And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud?
And, in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone,
As with a club, dash out my desperate brains? [55]
O, look! methinks I see my cousin's ghost
Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body
Upon a rapier's point: stay, Tybalt, stay!
Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee.

Note that the feud has very literally poisoned everything for these two innocent lovers. Romeo and Juliet should be
happily together celebrating their marriage and toasting each other with something much more harmless than this
potion!

Scene 4

16. What is happening in this brief scene?

17. What is the dramatic irony here? What scene, then, are we meant to parallel this scene with,
from the first half of the play?

18. In this scene we learn the name of the Nurse. What is her name, and why is it ironic?

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19. Whom does Capulet hear coming, and what does he tell the Nurse to do?

Scene 5

20. Who finds Juliet apparently dead? What joke does she make as she tries to awaken Juliet?

21. How does the day/night, light/dark motif come into play here? Give some examples from
this scene.

22. What simile does Lord Capulet use to describe her death? (“Death lies on her like…”)

23. Who, metaphorically-speaking, will be Lord Capulet’s son-in-law? That is, whom has Juliet
“married?”

24. Why is Juliet’s death especially difficult for Lady Capulet? (But one, poor one…”)

25. All of the characters speak at once, expressing their grief. Whose grief seems to be the most
intense? That is, whose language seems to be the most appropriate in response to a sudden
death?

26. What comfort does the Friar offer? What kind of man does he appear to be?

34. Shakespeare ends this scene with some comic relief. The musicians showed up to play at a
wedding, and are just as happy to play for a funeral instead, as long as they get paid (they
“sound” –play their music—for “silver”—money). Comic relief is used both to highlight and to
provide relief from the tragedy. While the upper classes are concerned with the tragic events of
their ridiculous feud, the lower classes are primarily concerned with what?