Lord Capulet

Question 1

Lord capulet as a good parent

Answer 1

lord capulet is presented as a stark juxtaposition for the normalities of upper class fathers on the elizabethan era, with shakespear useing him initially in the play to subvert older ideas of fatherhood.

Question 2

Lord capulet as good paragraph

Answer 2

• in the time period it was accepted that the rapport between a father and his child was formal and disjointed and the parent held a complete control over their child’s marriage often for the purpose of financial or societal benefit. for many of the audience at the time capulet choosing to prioritise not only his daughters youth and purity above her suitors but also actively seeking her consent in her relations makes him far more progressive
  -where the lord asks for “two more summers” before he weds his daughter away irs clear he values her youth as of high importance, summer itself draws connotations to joy but also a sense of nostalgia, the lord wishes not to waste away key times in the relationship with his daughter proving him to be a good father.
• empathy for the lord having “the earth swallowed all my hopes” the personification of nature plays into the elizabethan ideas of fate and there being the presence of a great ravenous power whom he is a helpless victim to. it also draws sympathy for his parenting as it shows that he has immense gratitude for his child as his entire sense of hope and joy has manifested itself in the form of his children, proving his life centres around juliet.
• he prioritises a very modern concept of marrying his daughter away consensually on her part but also due to the fact that she genuinely likes her groom, an idea very few fathers would have paid through the to or even comprehended at the time of the plays publication, for example he wills paris to “woo her” and to “get her heart” which though the idea of courting was very popular the concept of actually making a woman fall for you was rare as the desire and intrest of girls was seen as a foreign idea.
• he also abides to the ideas of a just patriarch, he tries to aid both his family and Juliet’s sorrows by arranging a successful marriage and his misery and personification of death as he reflects on her life shows a human care clouded by the pressures of adhering to the patriarchy- “the sweetest flower of all the field” “death lies on her like an untimely frost”

Question 3

Lord Capulet as bad thesis

Answer 3

shakespeare’s portrayal of lord capulet shifts him from a protective and defendable father to a volatile and agressive man who’s need to completely possess his daughters autonomy would be cringeworthy and injust to a contempary audience, however it could be argued that his switch is character due to his daughters disobedience was vastly the normality of the time and indeed he was looking to protect her with a marriage to an eligible suitor.

Question 4

Lord Capulet as bad paragraph

Answer 4

-the need to enforce his plan on to juliet manifests itself in an incredibly abusive manner, with the lord wishing death and disowning on his daughter rather than deal with the disobedience of women; the high belief of the patriarchy could further draw modern audiences against him and his parenting type.
- “disobedient wench” during her attempt to avoid marriage, the epithet created through the usage of the word disobedient highlights the cruelty and sees her as property which is furthered when he repeatedly refers to her as “baggage” making her seem like a weight dragging him down . wench itself is an insult which proves the lord to be very volatile and willing to insult his own bloodline to a high eztent.
- he threatens his own daughter with abandonment, telling her she will “hang, beg, die on the streets” if she stops conforming to his societal ideals of how women should comply to the predetermined ideals of men. Here the asyndetic listing empathises the erratic and panicked nature of the lords character and also the intensity of what a futute looks like for a woman if she does not have men to depend on, something he is wholey aware of. Together the list creates a semantic field of death which reinforces how capulet views his own honour as far more important than the very life of his sole child. particularly the term hang refers to a rather shocking elizabethan death which was usually only used to end the lives of criminals, shakespear is insinuating here that juliet’s actions in disobedience make her punishable by death.

Question 5

go0d

Answer 5

challenges the norm fr acourtly daughter in elizabethan era showing his devotion to her happiness
- two more summers
- the earth hath swallowed all my hopes
- woo her, get her heart
- his upset in her death, ‘the sweetest flower’
- his anger can be seen to be bred soceitally not difnitive of his character

Question 6

bad

Answer 6

• his aim to provide socially manifests itself in an abusive and controlling manner
  -my fingers itch
• baggage
• disobedient wench
  -hang beg die on the street creates a semantic field of deaeth
• saz\ucy boy/am i lord here or you