Juliet's Soliloquy

Juliet’s soliloquy in the balcony scene is more complex than the simple love declaration it may appear to be. The love struck Juliet is calling to her lover from her bedroom balcony. Alone, she believes, she is bemoaning their impossible situation, their parentage, and clearly wants to believe that by wishing, deeming and declaring to the stars that the truth can be changed.

Juliet feels upset and confused initially. Her passage, “Oh Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo," she appears to be ranting against unseen forces for making her fall for an enemy. Her emotions, in this scene, run the gambit of the childish giddiness of first love to absolute distain, defiance, and anger by the helpless realization that life is unfair and her inability to change it.

She feels that if the family is the problem, then she will reject her family. She tells Romeo to "Deny thy father and refuse thy name;" or, failing that, offering to do the same for him. She is thinking like a typical teenager who sees black and white, with no thought to the consequences of her actions. Her impulse to simply reject their identities shows how deeply troubled she is.

She believes that it is their names alone which stand in the way of their love. She knows that the Romeo she has fallen for is not an enemy, has none of the attributes of an enemy, certainly not any of his body parts. So she has two choices: change reality "O, be some other name!" or argue herself into rejecting the possibility that the family feud could extend to him. So she experiences conflict between doing right by her family and having her heart's desire.

The balcony scene showing two lovelorn teenagers declaring their affections for one another, while unaware of each others presence portrays Romeo and Juliet not as just symbols of romantic love, but of real teenagers dealing with an unexpected situation they find themselves in.