Please help me!!
i have an essay tomorrow and it is about Juliet in Elizabethan England.
The information i have been given is as follows:
John Knox said, "Women in her greatest perfection was made to serve and obey man."
With this in mind, do you believe that Juliet was wrong to marry Romeo? Explain your answer using your knowledge of Elizabethsn society (Pariarchical society) and your knowledge of the text.if you have any ideas, no matter how small, will you please help! thank you very much!
.Originally Posted by pretty_in_pink
Hi you are new to the site so welcome.
You could argue that Knox's statement above was a reflection of attitudes towards women at the time.
This is why Shakespeare is so interesting as his plays and his characterisation of women within his plays often challenged these attitudes. [Lady Macbeth for example].
Women operated entirely within the domestic sphere, whereas men were in the public domain.
However, in Elizabethan England the country was being ruled by an unmarried Queen, and in the grand scheme of things society was there to serve and obey her.
Was Juliet wrong to marry Romeo? Only in that she was disobeying the conventions of the time in going against her family's wishes.
As the question asks 'do you believe?' then perhaps you could go on to say that however, today we have in most countries, very different attitudes to womens' place in society.
I think you could also bring to your argument that Knox was a religious extremist, perhaps it was his religious fervour that was at the root of his words.
"Man, of all the animals, is probably the only one to regard himself as a great delicacy".
Jacques Yves Cousteau
Location: Turks and Caicos Islands,2003
Though England did have an unmarried Queen, Juliet's direct defiance of her father's wish for her to marry Paris was unusually brave. Marriages were generally arranged to benefit both families in terms of social status and wealth, marrying for love was still considerred a fairly rebellious act. Juliet, for all intents and purposes, was her father's property. In refuseing to marry Paris she was threatened with being disowned and living a life of poverty.
Was she wrong to marry Romeo? Had things not gone so terribly wrong the marriage may have succeeded in unifying the feuding families. There were relatively few choices for a woman ouside marriage...so with that in mind at least this marriage was of her own choosing and on her own grounds.
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