is very
young, barely a teenager, and has no experience of love before she meets . Yet the character's
speech demonstrates that she is an intelligent and sensitive young woman with a rather mature
take on love and romance. After falling in love with Romeo after meeting him at the dance, she
stares out her bedroom window and speaks aloud of her love for him, not realizing that he can
hear her. She complains about his name, because the feud between their families, the Capulets
and the Montagues, means they cannot be together. She tries to think of ways to solve this
problem. "Deny thy father, and refuse they name. Or if thou wilt not, then be but sworn my
love and I'll no longer be a Capulet!"
She means that if they marry, her
name will be the same as his and perhaps this will negate the feud. She appears to be displaying
the impetuous and idealistic temperament of a young girl in love: first, by fantasizing about
marrying a boy she has just met, and send, by assuming that the feud between two two clans could
be erased by something so simple as changing her last name.
But once she
realizes Romeo is there, she immediately warns him of the danger: "the orchard walls are
high and hard to climb, and the place death, considering who thou art, if any of my kinsmen find
thee here." She is both embarrassed that he overheard her, but also concerned for his well
being. Her nurse calls her inside repeatedly, and she worries she will be found out. She is torn
between her duty to her family and her newfound love, which inspires her to be impulsive. She is
ready to submit to Romeo utterly and offers to marry him and go wherever he wants. "All my
fortunes at thy foot I'll lay, and follow thee my lord throughout the world." For Juliet,
love is all-consuming and infinite.
As the play goes on, Juliet's view of
love is portrayed as wise beyond her years, and even grandiose at times, as when she speaks of
Romeo while she waits for him, saying "Give me my Romeo, and, when he shall die, take him
and cut him out in little stars; and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world
will be in love with night, and pay no worship to the garish sun." These words play on the
"star-cross'd lovers" theme of the play, the notion that fate has destined them to be
together, in this world and into eternity. Juliet believes she is destined to be with Romeo
forever.
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