#hamletprinceofdarkness

A lot of people will say that Juliet is young, stupid, and love obsessed. 

I am not one those people.

Juliet is actually strong minded, brave, and quite smart for her age, here’s why:

While, yes, Juliet is quite taken by Romeo, but Juliet is also aware of the situation she is in. She sees that she has two choices: 1) Settle for Paris who she has no interest in but her parents insist that he is a good match based on money or 2) Find an alternative in the limited time that she has and attempt to at least find affection if not love. Juliet does her best to take control of her own fate in the clearly patriarchal society of Verona. 

I find it so interesting that Juliet, a female, is the least in control of her own fate in the story despite her desperate attempts to regain control of her life. In fact, the very end is the only time when Juliet actually is able to choose her fate-death or a miserable life with Paris. Of course Juliet does try to find small ways to assert control, instead of spending time with Paris during the party she spends her time with Romeo, she chooses to say yes when Romeo proposes marriage, she chooses to go along with the Friar’s plan despite not knowing the full extent of it. However, if you really think about all of these choices, they are still ultimately made by men (Romeo and the Friar).

Juliet is a character that is in such a whirlwind of Man’s folly that I believe she does the best that she possibly can for herself given her circumstance. I  believe that Juliet’s suicide is a response to her fully realizing what a world without the only choice she is actually able made for herself (being with Romeo) could look like.

So-if I were to give advice to someone playing Juliet I would say-

Do not play stupid, do not play silly- there is a reason Juliet has no friends.

I'm sorry if this is too late, but I really hate answering specific questions like this because it is pretty clear that this was just for an assignment. I'm not trying to do other peoples homework here, I'm just trying to make Shakespeare more accessible.

That being said,

Shakespeare's fingerprint is his fascination with family, power, love, and greed. More than that, his fingerprint is the words themselves. When all of us who know Shakespeare very intimately see quotes by Shakespeare, that were clearly not by him, we know. Shakespeare left his fingerprint through the musicality of his words. Nobody talked like Shakespeare wrote, Shakespeare wrote in early modern English, but first and foremost he wrote in poetry. 

For example look at these lines

"O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! Is it not monstrous that this player here, But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so to his own conceit that from her working all his visage wann'd,Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect, A broken voice, and his whole function suiting With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!"

Look at the poetry in just these few lines.

Look at the alliteration of the sound "s"

"But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so to his own conceit "

Now, say these words aloud. Listen to the sounds they make when you say them. A person cannot help but feel the frustrations caused by the disjointed sounds of the c against the s and finally ending with the t sound. 

That's Shakespeare.

Now, what influenced him. The truth is that it was a number of things. If you know any person who is involved in Theatre, you know that they are really funny, and really good at making themselves heard. Well Shakespeare was an actor for a while before he started writing plays and that would have influenced his ability to know what actors need to cue acting instincts, emotions, and motivations. Shakespeare was also very inspired by history. During the 1600s, there were not a lot of history books lying around, but Shakespeare did manage to find some and write his history plays based on the text. Of course, we know that no movie will ever be the same as the original book it came from (this is because when you change an artistic medium, so too does the way the message is sent need to change (stop complaining about your movies that aren't the same as the book)). So Shakespeare was inspired by the past but took artistic liberties, as I am sure you would too if you had to condense the history of Richard III. 

On a personal level, the truth is that we do not know too much about Shakespeare other than he was probably a bit of a romantic (see sonnets) and he cheated on his wife Anne Hathaway (not the actress on imdb).

The odds of Shakespeare spending much of his time in a bar or tavern is 100%. I have no doubt that Shakespeare was drunk for much of his life. The truth is, if you were a man living in the center of the city life in London, you were probably getting laid and getting drunk. 

That's it for tonight.

About myself? I usually don’t like to talk about myself (hahahaha right). 

1. My hair 

2. I’d like to think I’m kind (except to you DJ) 

3. I’m wittier than Shakespeare. (cause he’s dead) 

4. I’m punctual. 

5. I got mad self- deprecation skills.  

And that hurts because I don't want to let go because letting go hurts.

But I do have friends who I know will be a part of my life for a long time after we all leave Dominican.  They've been the ones who've made this week less shitty.  They're the ones who always make me feel included.