Starting with this moment in the play, explore how Shakespeare presents relationships between adults and young people in ‘Romeo and Juliet’.

Through this passage Shakespeare gives an insight into the hierarchical relationship between adults and young people during the 16th century. Specifically here, the relationship between father and daughter and the role the father plays in deciding on fitting suitor to marry their daughter, Paris marrying Juliet in this example. The language used in the passage demonstrates that Juliet’s reluctance to follow her fathers wishes means she is a burden, or ‘baggage’ for her father, but that his is willing to ‘drag thee on a hurdle thither’ in order for her to marry well. One argument is that Juliet is attempting here to exert her own power and influence as a young person over her parents, in the act of exercising her own free will following ‘love’ and marrying Romeo over a safe future with Paris. The irony here, that although her father slings insults at her, ”, “green sickness carrion”, “tallow face”, the control he exerts comes from his own parental love for her. Her father’s word is law, and fighting against it is fighting against society, but that law comes from love and understanding of the world Juliet is entering into. This passage also demonstrates that she will do best in life with a husband of means due to her lack of agency as a woman in this period, and that she should be “proud” or “blest” to have such opportunities available to her. Shakespeare also nods to the tragic ending of the play, “I would the fool were married to her grave”. Perhaps hinting that suicide is the only way in which Juliet does have complete agency of her body. Her father has control of her body, because of the inherent patriarchal systems in the society, so the only way to exert her own free will as a young woman is to remove that body.