One of the protagonists of the play, along with Romeo . She is the female heir to the dynasty of House Capulet, which is in a long-standing feud with House Montague. At only 13, Juliet finds herself pulled from the cocoon of childhood when her mother, Lady Capulet , informs her that she’s of marriageable age and that the wealthy, handsome count Paris has set his sights on her. Juliet is reluctant to start thinking about love, and frequently clashes with her overbearing parents as they try to arrange a socially and monetarily fortuitous match for her. But when she meets Romeo, whom she does not realize is a member of House Montague, her family’s enemy, she is struck by desire. Even after she learns Romeo’s true identity, she continues pining for him, and when she realizes that he feels the same way, she demands he swear his love to her or leave her alone forever. She suggests that they get married if Romeo truly loves her, and Romeo accepts this proposal—in spite of (or perhaps because of) the feud between their houses. Juliet is, throughout the play, torn between her perceived duty to her family and her love for Romeo. Her burgeoning sexuality and desire for new experiences outside of the insular world of her family’s obsession with respectability and gentility drive her into Romeo’s arms, and lead her to take serious emotional and physical risks in pursuit of a life with him. In order to avoid marrying Paris, Friar Laurence helps Juliet come up with a plan to fake her own death using a special potion so that she will be buried in her family’s tomb and then excavated to be reunited with Romeo. However, the plan goes awry when, upon seeing Juliet’s “dead” body, Romeo kills himself in her tomb. As a young woman, Juliet knows she has limited options, and her choice to take her own life at the end of the play—often attributed to her desire to follow Romeo into death—may actually have more to do with her confusion, shame, and fear about her social standing in the wake of Romeo’s demise. When Friar Laurence suggests Juliet live out the rest of her days in a nunnery, she finds herself torn between facing the chaos and destruction she’s caused through her impulsiveness by dealing with the consequences outright, or living a life of shame and obfuscation, hidden away from the only world she’s ever known. Romantic yet grounded, introspective yet impulsive, and determined to be the master of her own destiny—even if that destiny is death—Juliet tests the limits of love, fate, duty, and independence throughout the play.
The Romeo and Juliet quotes below are all either spoken by Juliet or refer to Juliet. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes,
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows,
Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
