Lastly in this chapter, I will explore Juliet‘s relation to death, which is present way before the final act. Through foreshadowings and characters‘ statements, the spectator is never allowed to forget that death is on the horizon.
Another famous scene is Juliet‘s epithalamium, in which she yearns for nightfall, so she can encounter Romeo. She also mentions in her renowned soliloquy what would happen to Romeo after her death:
Come, gentle Night, come, loving, black-browed Night, Give me my Romeo, and when I 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.
(R&J, 3.2.20-25, my emphasis)
Juliet opens and closes the scene talking about death, but in different circumstances.
At the beginning she is joyful and excited to have her first night with Romeo, which she knows is bound to happen eventually, yet she talks about her own death; at the end of the scene, however, she has gotten the news of her cousin‘s murder and her husband‘s banishment, which cause her to ponder about Romeo‘s death, instead of hers: ―But I, a maid, die maiden-widowèd. / Come, cords, come, Nurse, I‘ll to my wedding bed, / And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!‖ (R&J, 3.2.135-137).
The very last thing Juliet says to Romeo, while he is leaving her chamber after their night together, is that he looks like a cadaver:
O God, I have an ill-divining soul!
Methinks I see thee now, thou art so low, As one dead in the bottom of a tomb.
Either my eyesight fails, or thou look‘st pale.
(R&J, 3.5.54-57)
Wishing on someone‘s death is also common in the play, notably Lady Capulet in 3.5.
The woman wishes and ponders on sending someone to kill Romeo to avenge her nephew Tybalt:
I‘ll send to one in Mantua,
Where that same banished runagate doth live, Shall give him such an unaccustomed dram That he shall soon keep Tybalt company.
(R&J, 3.5.88-91)
However, more shocking is her statement of wishing her daughter were dead after refusing Paris‘ marriage proposal: ―I would the fool were married to her grave.‖ (R&J, 3.5.140). Juliet, in turn, also relates marriage and death in this scene: ―Delay this marriage for a month, a week, / Or if you do not, make the bridal bed / In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.‖ (R&J, 3.5.199-201).
Romeo and Juliet is widely known not only for its suicidal protagonists, but also for its fake-death trope, which is ignited by Friar Lawrence and his forbidden potion. Juliet‘s decision to pretend to be dead is a courageous one, since she would be left alone in her family‘s tomb surrounded by corpses, something she mentions fearfully before drinking the liquid:
O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught, Environèd with all these hideous fears, And madly play with my forefathers‘ joints, And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud.
(R&J, 4.3.49-52)
Emma Smith mentions this tragic loneliness in her essay: ―The movement of the play is towards the lonely world of tragedy, which ends in the channel-house claustrophobia of the Capulet tomb.‖ (SMITH, 2019, p. 80).
Upon discovering Juliet‘s apparent dead body, her parents and her Nurse lament it and make use of various metaphors to describe her premature death, such as her mother‘s comparison to marriage: ―Death is my son-in-law, Death is my heir, / My daughter he hath wedded.‖ (R&J, 4.5.38-39) as well as Friar Lawrence‘s: ―She‘s not well married that lives married long, / But she‘s best married that dies married young.‖ (R&J, 4.5.77-78).
Juliet‘s last, and perhaps most important, decision is also a great act of empowerment. To take one‘s life is, in a sense, to play God. Juliet transgressed and – as typical for women in literature, such as Edna Pontellier from the novel The Awakening (1899), by Kate Chopin (1851-1904) – died because of this transgression, since she could not go back to her old life, for she was not the same anymore. Marlene Soares dos Santos explores Juliet‘s death in her essay:
Shakespeare still gives his heroine yet another striking scene in the play: while Romeo dies before, poisoned, Juliet must kill herself with his dagger giving an end to the couple‘s story. It should be added that the possibility of dying by a dagger had presented itself twice before: when she talks to Friar Lawrence (4.1.54) and, when she lies down, putting the dagger on the bed in case the potion did not work (4.3.23).
These are indications that Shakespeare gives us preparing the great impact of the end. (SANTOS, 2021, p. 352).17
17My translation of: ―Shakespeare ainda dá à sua heroìna, mais uma cena impactante na peça: enquanto Romeu morre antes, envenenado, cabe à Julieta se suicidar com o punhal dele encerrando a história do casal. Deve-se acrescentar que a possibilidade de se apunhalar já se apresentara duas vezes: quando ela vai falar com Frei Lourenço (4.1.54) e, quando se deita, colocando o punhal na cama caso a poção não faça efeito (4.3.23). Estes são ìndices que Shakespeare nos dá preparando o grande impacto do final.‖ (SANTOS, 2021, p. 352).
Death is, in a way, a means of permanent union with Romeo, as Coppélia Kahn stated in her essay: ―Love-death is not merely fated, it is willed‖ (KAHN, 1983, p. 189).
Both Romeo and Juliet‘s last words in the play are ―die‖. The young Montague drinks the poison and exclaims: ―O true apothecary! / Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.‖
(R&J, 5.3.119-120). Juliet, in turn, kills herself with Romeo‘s dagger, a phallic object, which could represent how the patriarchal society killed her through her own willed actions. During the act, she exclaims: ―O happy dagger, / This is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die.‖ (R&J, 5.3.169-170).
As previously discussed, Romeo and Juliet subverts many norms, including gender ones. In medieval literature, death by poison – bloodless, hence cleaner – was seen as a typical feminine death. Whereas death by blade – usually a phallic object, such as a sword, a dagger, or a knife – was seen as a masculine death. The undergraduate student Rachel Savini writes in her essay ―The -ick of it: Phalluses, Swords, and Character Development in
‗Beowulf‘ and ‗Morte d‘Arthur‘‖, about the role of the sword in pieces of literature, which date prior to Shakespearean times: ―The sword in medieval literature reflects the warrior who wields it by standing in as a phallic symbol and the general concept of gender beyond its physical uses in war.‖ (SAVINI, 2019, p. 3) The young lovers from Verona, hence, subvert gender norms even in their death.