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Act IV

Act IV. A Wedding Becomes a Funeral. Act IV: A Wedding Becomes a Funeral. Dramatic Irony. A contradiction between what a character thinks and what the reader or audience knows to be true

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Act IV

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  1. Act IV A Wedding Becomes a Funeral Act IV: A Wedding Becomes a Funeral

  2. Dramatic Irony • A contradiction between what a character thinks and what the reader or audience knows to be true • For example: Act III, scene 4: Lord Capulet announces that Juliet will wed Paris on Thursday, unaware that she married Romeo on Monday.

  3. Dramatic Irony • For example: In Act III, scene 1, Romeo will not duel Tybalt because the two are now kinsmen through marriage. However, Tybalt is unaware of Romeo and Juliet’s secret marriage. • Purpose: • create suspense & tension • draw the audience into the action of the story

  4. Act IV, scene 1: Tuesday • Paris confides to Friar Lawrence that Lord Capulet has hastened the wedding date to cheer Juliet, who continues to mourn Tybalt’s death. • (dramatic irony: Why does Juliet weep?) • In an aside, Friar says, “I would I knew not why it should be slowed –” (4.1.16).

  5. Act IV, scene 1: Tuesday • Juliet arrives at Friar’s to “make her confession.” • She and Paris exchange polite but guarded words. • He promises to wake her Thursday morning, then leaves.

  6. Act IV, scene 1: Tuesday • Juliet pleads with Friar for a way out of Thursday’s wedding to Paris. Her desperate plea is laced with threats of suicide: • “If in thy wisdom thou canst give no help, do thou but call my resolution wise and with this knife I’ll help it presently” (4.1.52-54).

  7. Act IV, scene 1: Tuesday • “ . . . Out of thy long-experienced time, give me some present counsel: or, twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife shall play the umpire . . .” (4.1.60-63). • “Be not so long to speak. I long to die . . . (4.1.66).

  8. Act IV, scene 1: Tuesday • Juliet’s desperate plea leads to a risky plan: • Friar Lawrence proposes, • “If rather than to marry County Paris, thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself, then it is likely thou wilt undertake a thing like death to chide away shame . . .” (4.1.71-74). (Do you recall the potion Friar made from the flower in Act II, scene 3?)

  9. Act IV, scene 1: Tuesday • Juliet replies morbidly, • “O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris, from off the battlements of any tower . . . Or bid me go into a new-made grave and hide me with a dead man in his shroud –” (4.1.77-87). • Juliet has no fear. She’ll do whatever it takes to prevent the arranged marriage to Paris.

  10. Act IV, scene 1: Tuesday Juliet returns home & happily consents to wed Paris. Wednesday evening she drinks the potion, which causes her to appear lifeless. Paris will arrive Thursday morning to find her dead. Her body will be taken to the Capulet vault. Meanwhile Friar will send word of the plan to Romeo in Mantua. Friar & Romeo will meet in the vault and await Juliet’s waking. Rome & Juliet will escape to Mantua. Friar Lawrence’s Plan:

  11. Act IV, scene 2: Tuesday • Juliet returns home, apologizes to her father and happily agrees to marry Paris. • She tells her father that Friar Lawrence has set her straight. • Capulet praises Friar Lawrence for his sage advise and moves the wedding to Wednesday. • (dramatic irony: Friar has advised Juliet to avoid, not enter into, a marriage with Paris.)

  12. Act IV, scene 3: Tuesday • Juliet asks for privacy from her mother and Nurse on the eve of her wedding night to atone for her disrespectful behavior. • Lady Capulet and Nurse exit.

  13. Act IV, scene 3: Tuesday • Juliet’s soliloquy: • “Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again. I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins that almost freezes up the heat of life” (4.3.15-16). • She fears that the potion may be poison. • She fears that she’ll wake before Romeo arrives and suffocate from the stench of Tybalt’s rotting corpse. • She imagines she sees Tybalt’s corpse pursuing Romeo.

  14. Act IV, scene 3: Tuesday • Frantic with fear, Juliet drinks the potion.

  15. Act IV, scene 4: Wednesday • Capulet household cheerfully bustles with wedding preparations • Paris arrives to wake his soon-to-be bride. • (dramatic irony: happy household has no idea Juliet is “dead”) Act IV, scene 4

  16. Act IV, scene 5: Wednesday • Nurse discovers Juliet’s corpse. • Lady Capulet’s reaction: “. . . My child, my only life, revive, look up, or I will die with thee” (4.5.20-21). • Lord Capulet’s reaction: “Death lies on her like an untimely frost upon the sweetest flower of all the field” (4.5.29-30).

  17. Act IV, scene 5: Wednesday • Capulet tells Paris of Juliet’s death: • “O son, the night before thy wedding day hath death lain with thy wife. There she lies flower as she was, deflowered by him” (4.5.37-38). • (dramatic irony: Romeo, not Death, deflowered Juliet)

  18. Act IV, scene 5: Wednesday • Capulet laments that the wedding celebration has turned into a funeral feast. • Friar Lawrence blames the Capulets for the death of their daughter: • “The heavens do low’r upon you for some ill; move them no more by crossing their high will” (4.5.95-96).

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