Question

Select the correct text in the passage.
Which two lines in the excerpt use dramatic irony?
Romeo and Juliet
by William Shakespeare (excerpt)


CAPULET: How now, my headstrong! where have you been gadding?


JULIET: Where I have learn'd me to repent the sin
Of disobedient opposition
To you and your behests, and am enjoin'd
By holy Laurence to fall prostrate here,
And beg your pardon: pardon, I beseech you!
Henceforward I am ever ruled by you.


CAPULET: Send for the county; go tell him of this:
I'll have this knot knit up to-morrow morning.


JULIET: I met the youthful lord at Laurence' cell;
And gave him what becomed love I might,
Not step o'er the bounds of modesty.

Answer 1

The lines that use dramatic irony are:

1. **"Where I have learn'd me to repent the sin / Of disobedient opposition / To you and your behests..."** (JULIET)
2. **"I'll have this knot knit up to-morrow morning."** (CAPULET)

Dramatic irony occurs when the audience knows something that the characters do not. In this case, Juliet is ostensibly expressing her obedience and repentance, while in reality, she is already secretly married to Romeo, which her father is unaware of. Similarly, Capulet's eagerness to arrange the marriage to Paris is ironic because the audience knows that Juliet is already married to someone else.