Exploring The Significance Of Juliet's Soliloquy.

In Act 4 of Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’, Juliet’s extended soliloquy discusses her fears and doubts about drinking the potion that the Friar Laurence has given to her. She repeats many “if” phrases, questioning hypotheticals that emphasise her troubled state of mind. She constantly questions the actions she is supposed to do and fears the consequences it could bring. A particularly heart-wrenching quote is that Juliet fears that the Friar has given her a poison but thinks better of it, calling the Friar a “holy man.” We learn from this that Juliet is troubled about who she can and cannot trust, particularly following the Nurse’s ‘betrayal’ of her. The use of the verb “fear” highlights Juliet’s youth and the audience feels pity that in her time of need, a girl who is not yet fourteen, a “stranger to the world,” does not feel that she can trust anyone.Furthermore, Juliet’s feelings are presented as tumultuous as she switches from one fear to another very quickly and her use of rhetorical questions emphasise this. She also uses an exclamatory sentence – “what a fearful point!” with regards to her fear of waking “before the time” Romeo comes to find and rescue her.