Juliet Capulet is very young. Marriage and love are not yet on her mind. When her mother suggests marrying, Juliet replies, “It is an honour that I dream not of.” This changes when she meets Romeo the Montague. He falls in love with her at first sight, and the attraction is mutual. Though youthful, Juliet is not shy. She banters with Romeo about hands and lips upon their first meeting. Her feelings for him are so intense, she says, that if he is married, “My grave is like to be my wedding bed.” She is also ready to abandon her family identity: “if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, / And I'll no longer be a Capulet.”
Juliet also expresses wisdom by noting how arbitrary the difference between Capulets and Montagues is: “'Tis but thy name that is my enemy.” She is also somewhat wary of “lovers' perjuries” and questions Romeo’s sincerity, telling him not to swear unless “by thy gracious self.” Juliet worries that their love is “too rash, too unadvised, too sudden.” However, she can be very impatient, growing angry at the nurse for taking so long to return with news from Romeo and comparing herself to “an impatient child that hath new robes / And may not wear them.”
Juliet has a dark side as well. When Romeo kills Tybalt, she refers to Romeo as, “O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!” She quickly repents her condemnation and mourns both Tybalt’s death and Romeo’s banishment. In fact, she wishes to kill herself then and there, so “death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!” In her overwhelming passion, she eventually does commit suicide, wasting no time once discovering Romeo’s dagger.
Ultimately, Juliet is a complicated character with a variety of qualities. She is young, emotional, and poetic but also witty, decisive, and even wise.
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