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Everything you need to know about Romeo and Juliet for OCR GCSE English Literature Paper 1, Section A.
Paper 1: Exploring Modern and Literary Heritage Texts
Section A — Shakespeare. You will be given an extract from Romeo and Juliet and asked a question about a theme or character. You must analyse the extract and refer to the wider play. The question is worth 40 marks and you should spend approximately 50 minutes on it.
Act 1: The Feud and the Meeting
The Prologue reveals that two feuding families in Verona — the Montagues and Capulets — will lose their children to a tragic love story. A street brawl between servants escalates, and Prince Escalus threatens death to anyone who disturbs the peace again. Romeo, lovesick over Rosaline, is persuaded by Benvolio and Mercutio to attend a Capulet feast. There, he sees Juliet and they fall instantly in love. Tybalt recognises Romeo and vows revenge. Romeo and Juliet share a sonnet and a kiss, only to discover they belong to rival families.
Act 2: The Secret Marriage
Romeo sneaks into the Capulet orchard and overhears Juliet on her balcony declaring her love for him. They exchange vows of love and plan to marry in secret. Romeo asks Friar Lawrence to perform the ceremony; the Friar agrees, hoping the marriage will end the feud. Juliet’s Nurse acts as a go-between. Romeo and Juliet are secretly married that afternoon. The entire courtship and marriage takes place within a single day, establishing the play’s breakneck pace.
Act 3: The Turning Point
Tybalt challenges Romeo to a duel. Romeo, now secretly Tybalt’s kinsman by marriage, refuses to fight. Mercutio fights Tybalt instead and is fatally stabbed when Romeo tries to intervene. Enraged, Romeo kills Tybalt and is banished from Verona by Prince Escalus. Juliet is torn between grief for Tybalt and love for Romeo. Romeo spends one night with Juliet before fleeing to Mantua. Lord Capulet arranges Juliet’s marriage to Count Paris, and when she refuses, he threatens to disown her.
Act 4: The Desperate Plan
Desperate and abandoned by the Nurse (who advises her to marry Paris), Juliet turns to Friar Lawrence. He gives her a potion that will make her appear dead for 42 hours. The plan is for her to be placed in the Capulet tomb, where Romeo will come to rescue her. Juliet takes the potion and is discovered “dead” on the morning of her wedding to Paris. The Capulet household is plunged into grief.
Act 5: The Tragedy
The Friar’s letter explaining the plan fails to reach Romeo in Mantua. Instead, Romeo hears that Juliet is dead. He buys poison and rushes to the tomb. There he encounters Paris, kills him, and drinks the poison beside Juliet’s body. Juliet wakes to find Romeo dead and stabs herself with his dagger. The Prince, the Montagues, and the Capulets arrive to discover the bodies. The Friar explains the truth, and the two families, devastated by the loss of their children, agree to end the feud.
Romeo Montague is the play’s tragic hero — a passionate, impulsive young man whose capacity for intense love is matched by his tendency towards rash action. When we first meet him, he is lovesick over Rosaline, using elaborate Petrarchan conceits (“O brawling love, O loving hate”) that suggest his love is more performative than genuine. His instant shift to Juliet raises questions about the depth of his feelings, yet his language transforms from clichéd to transcendent when he meets her.
Romeo’s fatal flaw is his impulsiveness. He rushes into love, rushes into marriage, kills Tybalt in a moment of rage, and kills himself without pausing to verify Juliet’s death. His cry “O, I am fortune’s fool!” suggests he sees himself as a victim of fate, yet Shakespeare invites the audience to question whether his own choices are to blame. Romeo embodies the play’s central tension between passion and reason, love and violence, youth and experience.
Key character arc
Lovesick Petrarchan lover → Genuinely transformed by love → Impulsive avenger → Desperate exile → Tragic, defiant death
Juliet Capulet is only thirteen years old, yet she emerges as the play’s most mature and articulate character. Initially presented as an obedient daughter (“I’ll look to like, if looking liking move”), she rapidly develops into a young woman of extraordinary courage, intelligence, and emotional depth. Her balcony speech demonstrates philosophical sophistication as she questions the arbitrary power of names and family allegiances.
Unlike Romeo, Juliet is pragmatic as well as passionate. She insists on marriage rather than mere declarations of love, and she is more aware of the dangers they face. When abandoned by her parents and the Nurse, she shows remarkable resilience, choosing to take the Friar’s potion despite her terror. Her final act — stabbing herself with Romeo’s dagger — is both a declaration of love and an assertion of autonomy in a society that has denied her any choice. Shakespeare uses Juliet to challenge Elizabethan expectations of female passivity.
Key character arc
Obedient, sheltered daughter → Passionate lover → Secret wife → Isolated and desperate → Courageous, autonomous death
Friar Lawrence is a complex figure who functions as both a mentor and a catalyst for tragedy. His knowledge of herbs and potions (“Within the infant rind of this small flower / Poison hath residence, and medicine power”) symbolises the play’s central duality: the same substance can heal or destroy. He agrees to marry Romeo and Juliet hoping to end the feud, showing good intentions but flawed judgement.
The Friar repeatedly warns against haste (“Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast”), yet ironically devises the most reckless plan of all — the sleeping potion. His failure to deliver the letter to Romeo is the immediate cause of the tragedy. Shakespeare uses the Friar to explore the gap between wisdom and action, and to suggest that well-meaning adults can cause as much harm as the feuding families through their interference.
Mercutio is Romeo’s closest friend and the play’s most charismatic character — witty, irreverent, and scornful of romantic love. His Queen Mab speech (Act 1, Scene 4) reveals a darker side beneath the humour, as the fairy fantasy descends into images of violence and corruption. He mocks Romeo’s love as weakness and reduces everything to bawdy physicality, offering a counterpoint to Romeo’s idealism.
Mercutio is neither Montague nor Capulet, which makes his death at Tybalt’s hands particularly tragic — he is an innocent casualty of a feud that is not his own. His dying curse, “A plague o’ both your houses!” condemns both families and marks the play’s irreversible turn from comedy to tragedy. His death removes the play’s primary source of humour and lightness, leaving only darkness.
Tybalt is the embodiment of the feud — aggressive, honour-driven, and defined entirely by his hatred of the Montagues. Known as the “Prince of Cats” for his fencing skill, he represents the toxic masculinity and violence that pervades Verona. His fury at Romeo’s presence at the Capulet feast (“This, by his voice, should be a Montague. / Fetch me my rapier, boy”) shows how the feud makes enemies of strangers.
Tybalt’s death is the play’s pivotal moment. His killing of Mercutio provokes Romeo’s revenge, which leads to Romeo’s banishment and ultimately to the lovers’ deaths. Shakespeare uses Tybalt to show how the older generation’s hatred is transmitted to the young, perpetuating a cycle of violence that can only be broken by catastrophic loss.
The Nurse is Juliet’s closest confidante and surrogate mother, providing comic relief with her bawdy humour and rambling speeches. She has raised Juliet since infancy and loves her deeply, yet her understanding of love is purely physical and pragmatic. She initially supports the secret marriage and acts as a go-between, showing loyalty to Juliet’s happiness over her parents’ wishes.
However, the Nurse’s betrayal in Act 3, Scene 5 — advising Juliet to forget Romeo and marry Paris (“I think it best you married with the County”) — is a turning point in Juliet’s isolation. The Nurse cannot comprehend the depth of Juliet’s love because she sees marriage as a practical arrangement rather than a spiritual bond. Her abandonment drives Juliet to the Friar and towards the desperate plan that ends in tragedy.
Lord Capulet is initially presented as a reasonable father who tells Paris that Juliet is too young for marriage and that her consent matters (“My will to her consent is but a part”). However, after Tybalt’s death, he becomes tyrannical, arranging Juliet’s marriage without her knowledge and erupting in violent fury when she refuses (“Hang thee, young baggage! Disobedient wretch!”).
His transformation reveals the patriarchal power structures of Elizabethan society, where daughters were essentially their fathers’ property. Shakespeare uses Capulet to show how even loving parents can become instruments of oppression when they prioritise honour, social status, and control over their children’s autonomy and happiness.
Shakespeare explores multiple forms of love: the shallow, Petrarchan love Romeo feels for Rosaline; the transcendent, transformative love between Romeo and Juliet; the bawdy, physical love described by Mercutio and the Nurse; the possessive, patriarchal love of Lord Capulet; and the well-meaning but ineffective love of the Friar. Romeo and Juliet’s love is presented as genuine and all-consuming, but also as dangerously intense and hasty. Their love exists in opposition to the hate that surrounds it, and Shakespeare suggests that such extreme passion can only exist briefly before it is destroyed.
Key quote: “My bounty is as boundless as the sea, / My love as deep; the more I give to thee, / The more I have, for both are infinite” — Juliet presents love as infinitely renewable, contrasting with the zero-sum game of the feud.
The Prologue introduces Romeo and Juliet as “star-cross’d lovers,” suggesting their fate is written in the stars. Throughout the play, references to fate, fortune, and destiny create a sense of inevitability. Romeo calls himself “fortune’s fool” and later defies the stars. Yet Shakespeare also presents the tragedy as the result of human choices — the feud, impulsive decisions, failed communication, and the adults’ inability to protect their children. The play invites the audience to question whether the lovers are truly fated, or whether their tragedy is the consequence of a society poisoned by hatred.
Key quote: “Then I defy you, stars!” — Romeo’s attempt to defy fate ironically fulfils it.
The feud between the Montagues and Capulets is the engine of the tragedy. Shakespeare presents the conflict as senseless and self-perpetuating — an “ancient grudge” whose original cause is never explained. Violence erupts from trivial provocations (thumb-biting) and escalates to murder and suicide. The play connects violence to masculine honour: Tybalt fights to defend family pride, Mercutio fights because he despises cowardice, and Romeo kills in a rage he cannot control. Shakespeare suggests that such violence is ultimately futile — the feud achieves nothing except the destruction of the families’ own children.
Key quote: “A plague o’ both your houses!” — Mercutio’s dying curse condemns the senselessness of the feud.
Light and dark imagery permeates the play. Romeo repeatedly associates Juliet with light (“Juliet is the sun,” “she doth teach the torches to burn bright”), yet their love flourishes only in darkness — they meet at a night-time feast, declare their love under cover of night, and are separated by the dawn. This paradox suggests that their love is too brilliant for the dark world of the feud, and that it can only exist in the hidden spaces between day and night, public and private. Ultimately, both lovers die in the darkness of the Capulet tomb, where their “light” is extinguished.
Key quote: “It is the East, and Juliet is the sun” — Romeo elevates Juliet to a cosmic force, yet the sun must always set.
The play dramatises a generational divide. The young lovers represent hope, passion, and the possibility of change, while the older generation — Lord Capulet, Lord Montague, and to some extent the Friar and the Nurse — represent tradition, authority, and the status quo. The adults’ failure to protect their children is central to the tragedy: Lord Capulet forces an unwanted marriage, the Nurse abandons Juliet, and the Friar’s plan fails catastrophically. Shakespeare suggests that the older generation bears the greatest responsibility for the tragedy because they perpetuate the feud and fail to understand the intensity of youthful love.
Key quote: “These violent delights have violent ends” — the Friar understands the danger but cannot prevent it.
Death haunts the play from the Prologue’s revelation of the “death-mark’d” love. Shakespeare repeatedly personifies Death as Juliet’s rival lover — Lord Capulet says Death “hath lain with” Juliet, and Romeo finds Death has not marred her beauty. Time is compressed to an extraordinary degree: the entire action unfolds over four days, creating a relentless momentum that mirrors the lovers’ urgency and leaves no space for reflection or reconciliation. The haste itself becomes a cause of the tragedy — if Romeo had waited even moments longer, Juliet would have woken.
Key quote: “Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast” — the Friar’s warning about the danger of haste proves tragically prophetic.
Juliet exists within a patriarchal society where women are expected to obey their fathers and husbands. Lord Capulet treats her as property to be given in marriage (“An you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend”), and the Nurse sees marriage as a practical transaction. Juliet’s rebellion — choosing her own husband, defying her father, and ultimately choosing death over a life without Romeo — represents a radical challenge to patriarchal authority. Shakespeare invites sympathy for Juliet’s position, presenting her father’s rage as tyrannical rather than justified. The male characters’ obsession with honour and violence is also critiqued as a form of toxic masculinity that destroys everything it claims to protect.
Key quote: “O happy dagger, / This is thy sheath” — Juliet’s final act is one of agency and self-determination.
Learn these quotations for the closed-book exam. Each one can be applied to multiple themes and characters.
“Two households, both alike in dignity, / In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, / From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, / Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean”
Prologue
The Prologue establishes the play's central conflict and its tragic inevitability. The oxymoron 'civil blood makes civil hands unclean' highlights the paradox of civilised citizens committing violent acts. The sonnet form of the Prologue is significant - sonnets are traditionally associated with love poetry, yet here Shakespeare uses the form to describe hatred and death, foreshadowing the intertwining of love and violence throughout the play. By revealing the ending at the start, Shakespeare shifts the audience's focus from what happens to why it happens.
“O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! / It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night / Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear”
Romeo (Act 1, Scene 5)
Romeo's first sight of Juliet is expressed through light and dark imagery. The hyperbole 'teach the torches to burn bright' elevates Juliet above the natural world - she is brighter than fire itself. The simile 'like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear' presents Juliet as something precious and radiant against darkness, establishing the play's recurring motif of light versus dark. This imagery also foreshadows the doomed nature of their love - beauty that shines brightest in darkness suggests something that cannot survive in the ordinary light of day.
“My only love sprung from my only hate! / Too early seen unknown, and known too late!”
Juliet (Act 1, Scene 5)
Juliet's reaction upon learning Romeo is a Montague uses antithesis ('love' / 'hate') to capture the central paradox of the play. The exclamatory tone conveys shock and despair. 'Too early seen unknown, and known too late' suggests the cruelty of fate - she fell in love before she knew his identity, and now the knowledge comes too late to undo her feelings. The rhyming couplet gives the line a sense of finality, as though their fate is already sealed.
“But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? / It is the East, and Juliet is the sun”
Romeo (Act 2, Scene 2)
The balcony scene opens with Romeo's metaphor comparing Juliet to the sun - the source of all light and life. This is more than romantic hyperbole; it positions Juliet as the centre of Romeo's universe, replacing everything else. The verb 'breaks' suggests sudden illumination, as though Juliet's appearance shatters the darkness. The East is where the sun rises, associating Juliet with new beginnings and hope. Yet the audience, knowing the Prologue, understands this 'sun' is destined to set.
“What's in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet”
Juliet (Act 2, Scene 2)
Juliet's philosophical reflection challenges the power of names and, by extension, the feud itself. She argues that identity is not determined by labels - a 'rose' is defined by its essence, not its name. This is a radical idea in a society governed by family honour and patriarchal authority. Juliet is essentially arguing that the feud is arbitrary and meaningless. However, the play ultimately proves her wrong - names and family allegiances do have the power to destroy, no matter how irrational they may be.
“These violent delights have violent ends / And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, / Which, as they kiss, consume”
Friar Lawrence (Act 2, Scene 6)
The Friar's warning is one of the play's most important pieces of foreshadowing. The oxymoron 'violent delights' captures the destructive potential within passionate love. The simile 'like fire and powder' compares their love to an explosion - beautiful but devastating, instant and all-consuming. The verb 'consume' suggests total destruction. The Friar functions as a choric voice here, articulating the play's central warning: that extremes of passion - whether love or hate - lead to destruction.
“A plague o' both your houses!”
Mercutio (Act 3, Scene 1)
Mercutio's dying curse is the play's turning point. Repeated three times, it condemns both the Montagues and Capulets equally, refusing to take sides in the feud that has cost him his life. The word 'plague' invokes disease and divine punishment - Mercutio sees the feud as a sickness infecting all of Verona. His death transforms the play from comedy to tragedy, and his curse proves prophetic: the 'plague' of the feud will indeed claim Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare uses Mercutio to voice the audience's frustration at the senseless violence.
“O, I am fortune's fool!”
Romeo (Act 3, Scene 1)
Romeo's cry after killing Tybalt acknowledges the role of fate in his downfall. The metaphor 'fortune's fool' presents Romeo as a plaything of destiny - the word 'fool' suggests both a victim and a jester, someone manipulated for entertainment. This links to the Prologue's description of 'star-cross'd lovers' and reinforces the theme of fate versus free will. However, Romeo's exclamation also deflects personal responsibility - is he truly fate's victim, or has his own impulsive nature led him here?
“Give me my Romeo; and, when I shall die, / Take him and cut him out in little stars, / And he will make the face of heaven so fine / That all the world will be in love with night”
Juliet (Act 3, Scene 2)
Juliet's epithalamium (wedding-night speech) transforms Romeo into celestial imagery. The idea of cutting Romeo 'in little stars' is both beautiful and violent - the verb 'cut' foreshadows death while creating an image of eternal beauty. The conceit that Romeo would make 'all the world' fall 'in love with night' inverts the normal association of love with daylight. This speech exemplifies how Romeo and Juliet's love exists in darkness, hidden from the feuding world. The imagery also prefigures their deaths - they will indeed become immortal through their story.
“Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast”
Friar Lawrence (Act 2, Scene 3)
The Friar's proverbial warning about haste proves tragically prophetic. The antithesis between 'wisely and slow' and 'run fast' captures the play's central tension between caution and impulsiveness. Romeo and Juliet's love moves at breakneck speed - they meet, marry, and die within four days. The verb 'stumble' is a gentle understatement for the catastrophe to come. The Friar's own advice, ironically, is something he himself fails to follow when he devises the sleeping potion plan.
“O serpent heart hid with a flow'ring face! / Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?”
Juliet (Act 3, Scene 2)
Juliet's reaction to Romeo killing Tybalt is expressed through a series of oxymorons and antithetical images. The 'serpent heart' with a 'flow'ring face' echoes Lady Macbeth's 'look like the innocent flower / But be the serpent under't,' connecting deception with the Biblical Fall. Yet Juliet's anger is short-lived - she quickly defends Romeo, showing that her love transcends even the murder of her cousin. The passage reveals the impossible position the feud places her in: torn between family loyalty and romantic love.
“Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath, / Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty”
Romeo (Act 5, Scene 3)
Romeo's words over Juliet's apparently dead body are charged with dramatic irony - she is not dead but drugged. The personification of Death as a creature that 'suck'd the honey' of her breath is both tender and grotesque. The fact that Juliet still looks beautiful is taken by Romeo as evidence of death's gentleness, when it is actually evidence that she lives. Shakespeare forces the audience to watch Romeo make a fatal mistake based on incomplete knowledge, heightening the tragedy unbearably.
“Then I defy you, stars!”
Romeo (Act 5, Scene 1)
Romeo's declaration upon hearing of Juliet's death is a moment of tragic defiance. By defying the 'stars' (fate), Romeo ironically fulfils the destiny foretold in the Prologue - his attempt to overcome fate through suicide is itself the completion of fate's plan. The exclamatory brevity of the line conveys desperate, impulsive energy. This moment encapsulates the play's exploration of free will versus destiny: Romeo believes he is taking control, but he is actually sealing his doom.
“For never was a story of more woe / Than this of Juliet and her Romeo”
Prince Escalus (Act 5, Scene 3)
The Prince's closing couplet frames the tragedy as a cautionary tale for Verona and the audience. The rhyming couplet gives a sense of formal closure, like the ending of a sonnet. The possessive 'her Romeo' is significant - in death, Romeo belongs to Juliet rather than to either family. The superlative 'never' and 'more woe' insist on the unique intensity of this tragedy. The Prince's words are also an indictment - the 'woe' was preventable, caused by the adults' hatred rather than the lovers' passion.
“My bounty is as boundless as the sea, / My love as deep; the more I give to thee, / The more I have, for both are infinite”
Juliet (Act 2, Scene 2)
Juliet's declaration of love uses the sea as a metaphor for limitless generosity. The simile 'boundless as the sea' and the paradox that giving increases rather than diminishes her love present an idealised vision of love as infinitely renewable. The iambic regularity and flowing enjambment mirror the boundless quality she describes. This is one of the most mature expressions of love in the play - Juliet articulates a love that is selfless and abundant, contrasting with the possessive, destructive love that the feud imposes.
“Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?”
Abraham (Act 1, Scene 1)
The play opens with a petty, almost comical confrontation between servants. Thumb-biting was an Elizabethan insult, and Shakespeare uses this trivial provocation to show how easily the feud escalates into violence. The legalistic quibbling ('Do you bite your thumb at us?') exposes the absurdity of the conflict - men are ready to kill over a gesture. This opening scene establishes that the feud is sustained not by genuine grievance but by performative masculinity and blind loyalty to family honour.
“It is the East, and Juliet is the sun. / Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon”
Romeo (Act 2, Scene 2)
Romeo's extended metaphor positions Juliet as the sun that eclipses Diana, the moon goddess associated with chastity and virginity. The imperative 'arise' and 'kill' inject urgency and violence into a love declaration, foreshadowing the entwining of love and death throughout the play. By asking Juliet to 'kill the envious moon,' Romeo is symbolically asking her to abandon chastity - a subversive request in Elizabethan society where female virginity was paramount. The celestial imagery elevates their love above the earthly feud.
“O happy dagger, / This is thy sheath. There rust, and let me die”
Juliet (Act 5, Scene 3)
Juliet's final words are devastatingly brief compared to Romeo's lengthy final speech, reflecting her decisive nature. The oxymoron 'happy dagger' redefines death as a joyful reunion with Romeo. The sexual connotation of 'sheath' connects death and consummation - the Elizabethan pun on 'die' (meaning both death and orgasm) makes their final union both tragic and intimate. Juliet's agency in choosing death is significant - throughout the play she has been controlled by her father, but in death she makes her own choice.
Understanding context is essential. Here are the key contextual areas to know for Romeo and Juliet:
In Elizabethan England, marriages were typically arranged by parents, especially among the wealthy. Women were legally the property of their fathers and then their husbands. Daughters were expected to be obedient and had little say in whom they married. Juliet’s defiance of her father would have been shocking to an Elizabethan audience, yet Shakespeare presents her position sympathetically, inviting the audience to question the justice of patriarchal authority.
Italian and Elizabethan societies placed enormous value on family honour. An insult to one family member demanded a response from the entire clan. Duelling, though increasingly outlawed, was still practised as a means of settling disputes. Tybalt’s challenge to Romeo and Mercutio’s intervention reflect this code of honour. Shakespeare critiques this system by showing how it escalates trivial conflicts into fatal violence.
The Church was central to Elizabethan life, and Friar Lawrence represents its authority. Marriage was a sacrament that could not be undone, which is why Juliet cannot simply marry Paris after secretly marrying Romeo. The Friar’s involvement in the secret marriage and his use of potions would have been morally ambiguous to an Elizabethan audience — he is acting against parental authority and using deception, even if his intentions are good.
Romeo’s early language draws on the conventions of Petrarchan love poetry — a tradition where the male lover worships an unattainable woman using elaborate conceits, oxymorons, and hyperbole. Shakespeare both uses and subverts this tradition: Romeo’s Petrarchan language for Rosaline is exposed as shallow when contrasted with the more genuine, mutual love he shares with Juliet. The sonnet form — used in the Prologue and in Romeo and Juliet’s first exchange — connects the play to this poetic tradition.
Elizabethans believed in the influence of the stars and fortune on human affairs. The concept of the “wheel of fortune” — where individuals rise and fall according to fate — was widely understood. Romeo and Juliet as “star-cross’d lovers” would have resonated with an audience who believed that celestial forces could determine human destiny. However, Shakespeare also allows for human agency, creating a deliberate ambiguity about whether the tragedy is fated or self-inflicted.
Shakespeare set the play in Verona, Italy, drawing on Arthur Brooke’s poem The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet (1562). Italy was associated in the English imagination with passion, violence, and intrigue. The Prince’s repeated interventions to restore order reflect Elizabethan anxieties about civil disorder and the importance of strong governance. The play’s message — that private feuds endanger the entire community — would have resonated in a society that had experienced its own religious and political conflicts.
Remember that the OCR Shakespeare question gives you an extract. You must analyse the extract and explore the wider play. Here is a recommended structure:
Introduction (3–4 sentences)
Address the question directly. State how Shakespeare presents the theme/character in the extract and across the play. Mention relevant context briefly.
Paragraph 1: Extract analysis
Close analysis of language in the extract. Quote specific words and phrases. Explore connotations and effects. Use subject terminology. Link to context where relevant.
Paragraph 2: Extract analysis (continued)
Second key point from the extract. Consider structural features, dramatic techniques, or a different aspect of the language.
Paragraph 3: Wider play (earlier in the text)
Explore how the same theme/character is presented earlier in the play. Use a memorised quotation. Compare with the extract.
Paragraph 4: Wider play (later in the text)
Explore how the theme/character develops or changes later. Track the character’s arc or the theme’s progression. Link to Shakespeare’s message.
Conclusion
Final evaluative judgement. What is Shakespeare’s overall message about this theme/character? Why does it matter? Consider the effect on the audience.
1. Explore how Shakespeare presents the theme of love in this extract and elsewhere in the play.
2. How does Shakespeare present conflict in this extract and elsewhere in the play?
3. Explore how Shakespeare presents the character of Juliet in this extract and elsewhere in the play.
4. How does Shakespeare present ideas about fate in this extract and elsewhere in the play?
5. Explore how Shakespeare presents the relationship between parents and children in this extract and elsewhere in the play.
6. How does Shakespeare use the character of Romeo to explore ideas about masculinity in this extract and elsewhere in the play?
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