Shakespeare, Year 10: Romeo and Juliet (Romeo and Juliet option)

Rosaline

HintShe is a niece of Capulet who does not return his love.

The whyRomeo is miserable over her at the start of the play. Benvolio tells him to look at other women, and the invitation list to the Capulet feast is how he comes to meet Juliet instead.

That she is so radiant that she outshines the lights in the room

HintThink of what torches do in a dark hall.

The whyRomeo often thinks of Juliet as light, here and again in the garden when he calls her the sun. It is a way of showing how bright she seems to him.

oxymoron

HintIts name comes from a Greek phrase meaning sharp-dull.

The whyRomeo uses a string of these when he is miserable over Rosaline. He is trying out the fashionable language of love poems before he has felt anything real.

Fortune: bad luck or fate

HintHe does not blame himself first.

The whyRomeo has just been pushed into the killing by Mercutio's death, and he sees himself as a plaything of chance. The play leaves it open how far he is really to blame for his rashness.

He drinks poison in the Capulet tomb

HintHe bought it from a man in Mantua.

The whyRomeo has killed Paris at the tomb, then lies down beside Juliet and drinks. A few moments later Juliet wakes.

Thirteen: she is not yet fourteen

HintShe is younger than most GCSE students, by a few years.

The whyCapulet says she has not seen the change of fourteen years, and the Nurse says that on Lammas Eve she will be fourteen. Her youth makes her father's pressure to marry harder to excuse.

Dutifully but cautiously: she will look at him, but promise no more

HintShe is obedient without being keen.

The whyThe Juliet of Act 1 is a polite and obedient daughter who has not thought about love. Her independence grows quickly after she meets Romeo.

That a name is just a label: Romeo would be the same man if he were called something else

HintShe compares the matter to a rose.

The whyJuliet is thinking aloud on her balcony. For her the feud is a matter of words, but the play shows that the names carry life-or-death power.

That she has become brave and takes decisions on her own, in spite of her fears

HintShe is more frightened now than at any other point in the play.

The whyShe imagines waking in the tomb among the dead and wonders whether the Friar has tricked her, yet she drinks. She has gone from the obedient girl of Act 1 to someone who risks everything for her choice.

She stabs herself with Romeo's dagger

HintShe finds the weapon at his side.

The whyShe wakes to find Romeo dead; the Friar urges her to leave, and she refuses. She speaks to the dagger, calling it happy.