Question

Excerpt from Romeo and Juliet, Act IV, Scene I:

Juliet:
"O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,
From off the battlements of yonder tower;
Or walk in thievish ways; or bid me lurk
Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears;
Or shut me nightly in a charnel house,
O’ercovered quite with dead men’s rattling bones,
With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls;
Or bid me go into a new-made grave
And hide me with a dead man in his shroud—
Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble—
And I will do it without fear or doubt,
To live an unstained wife to my sweet love."

15. In this excerpt, Juliet is speaking with Friar Laurence about her desperation to avoid marrying Paris. Identify an example of dramatic irony in this scene and explain how it contributes to the tension in the play.

Answer 1

Dramatic irony: the audience already knows (from Act II) that Juliet is secretly married to Romeo, whereas most other characters — especially Paris and the Capulets — do not. In this passage Juliet tells Friar Laurence that she would rather leap from a tower, hide in a charnel house, or "go into a new-made grave" than marry Paris, and vows to do any of those things "to live an unstained wife to my sweet love."

Why it heightens tension:
- Because the audience knows Juliet is already Romeo’s wife, her refusal of Paris is not merely rebellious but has deeper consequences; we foresee the clash between her private bond and public expectations. That knowledge makes every line of defiance more fraught — we wait to see how others will react when they discover (or think they have discovered) her disobedience.
- Her vivid image of a grave is also tragically ironic/foreshadowing: the audience will later see her in a tomb, so the speech creates a sense of impending doom. The gap between what the characters believe and what the audience knows builds suspense and emotional unease, since we anticipate the misunderstandings and disasters that secrecy will produce.