Romeo and Juliet - ACT II - Summary and Analysis
This is a summary and analysis of ACT II from William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
Act two begins with Romeo breaking Rule #1 of the “bro code”: Never ditch your friends for a girl. When the Capulet party ends, Romeo is presumably leaving with the same friends he walked in with, including Benvolio and Mercutio. Except he is already so enamored with Juliet that he decides to stick around and hide in some bushes while his friends fruitlessly call his name.
Then Romeo in a totally non-creepy way climbs over the Capulets’ orchard wall and stares through Juliet’s window. Then when Juliet appears at her window Romeo in a very non-creepy way stares at her, exclaiming to himself, “But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the East and Juliet is the sun.” Thus begins Romeo and Juliet’s famous “Balcony Scene…” although if we’re being honest, there is no actual balcony ever mentioned in this scene, but putting Juliet on a balcony instead of just through a window became a handy way for directors to make Juliet more visible and able to interact with Romeo during this scene.
Anyway, as Romeo is spying with heart eyes up at Juliet, it just so happens that at this moment Juliet is looking out into the darkness and saying some of her most famous lines: “Romeo, o Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo. Deny thy father and refuse thy name.” And a little later, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other word would smell as sweet.” What Juliet is really declaring here is one, that she’s in love with Romeo, and two, that she recognizes the fundamental challenge they both face in their relationship - their names. Her memorable line about a rose is really calling into question the arbitrary nature of words and names, arguing that if Romeo was called any name other than Montague, he would still be the same Romeo and they could proceed with their relationship uninhibited. This point about their family connections is the first thing the two of them discuss together in this scene, once Romeo - you know - jumps out of the bushes and reveals himself to her.
What’s interesting about their loving declarations is how quickly they each proclaim their willingness to denounce their families and their names. They don’t directly discuss their families or the mutual dilemma they share much more after this, but this foundational understanding of the complicated and not a little dangerous nature of their relationship fuels the childish secrecy they operate under for the rest of the story.
What’s also interesting to note about this scene is the completely different kinds of interactions the two of them engage in. Almost all of Juliet’s lines are stating practical questions or facts, such as “how did you get in here?” and “if you get caught by my family they’ll kill you.” Contrastingly, like we noted earlier, almost all of Romeo’s lines are spoken with a poetic flourish, telling Juliet that he flew over her wall on wings of love, and that her eyes are more dangerous than her family’s swords. After the two of them finally swear their love for one another, Juliet brings up the possibility of marriage, which Romeo wholeheartedly affirms. Even though Juliet’s questions seem so practical, the truly practical thing to do is recognize that she just met this guy and getting married should be out of the question right now. But wait a minute - I thought marriage was out of the question for Juliet, since just hours before we witnessed Juliet telling her parents that marriage was “an honor she dreamed not of.” So what’s shifted for Juliet? And how do we interpret this ironic cavalcade of reasonable questions alongside the headlong rush into marriage with Romeo?
After finally dragging himself away from Juliet’s window, Romeo makes his way over to Friar Laurence. We come upon Friar Laurance as he is greeting the morning out in the field picking various flowers, and notably as Romeo approaches, Laurence picks a flower he knows to be poisonous. Hmmmm….foreshadowing anyone? ...
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