Romeo and Juliet Questions

Attitudes towards death.

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Juliet is pretty desperate. Her father, Capulet, has just called her an ungrateful strumpet and threatened to kick her out of his house if she doesn't marry Paris. Juliet is running out of options here. Girls were pretty much the property of their fathers until they got married. Although Capulet claimed earlier that Juliet needed to like Paris first, the truth is she was always subject to her father's decisions. When she refuses to marry Paris she goes from, in her father's eyes, Jewel of his life to common hussy. It's the old Madonna/whore complex. So, Juliet escapes to Friar Lawrence’s Cell. She cannot return home unless she concedes to her father's wishes. It was not like she could go into Verona and get a job at 7/11 either. Juliet sees a life with Romeo fading in the distance. Romeo has been banished and any union could claim his life. She pleads with Father Lawrence for a ray of hope or else she will kill herself, "Be not so long to speak; I long to die,
If what thou speak'st speak not of remedy." Juliet, like Romeo, has always been impulsive and passionate. That's pretty much sums these two up. She feels cornered and is willing to do anything, including suicide, to ease her pain.