What do you think would've happened if Juliet never met Romeo and got married to Paris instead?
I think itās hard to say, because Juliet repulses Paris, but Iām not certain how much that disregard derives from her love for Romeo. āProud can I never be of what I hate,ā she says about her marriage to Paris. But would she be so opposed to it if she wasnāt in love with (and married to) Romeo? The Nurse says that Juliet āhad as lief see a toad, a ver toad, / As see [Paris]. I anger her sometimes, / And tell her that Paris is the properer man; / But Iāll warrant you, when I say so she looks / As pale as any clout in the versal world.ā I think these linesĀ can be read in different waysādid she say those things to Juliet before meeting Romeo? Afterwards?
But whether Julietās aversion to Paris is influenced by her feelings for Romeo or not, I think Parisā personality could hardly satisfy Juliet. Their conversation in act IV, scene I seems full of tension to me. Juliet is quick-witted, intelligent, her use of language wonderfully nuanced. But Paris canāt decipher the true meaning behind her wordsāhe doesnāt really try very hard. This is a man who is about to marry a woman heās never talked to. āYou say you do not know the ladyās mind. / Uneven is the course, I like it not,ā says Friar Lawrence. Paris answers that Tybaltās death has saddened her so much, surely marrying a man she doesnāt know will make her feel better. But he does not imediately ask about her well-being when he interacts with her; on the contrary, he talks to her as if she were his wife already: āHappily met, my lady and my wife.ā Juliet answers evasively: āThat may be, sir, when I may be a wifeā. āThat āmay beā must be,ā he assures rather bossily.
That contrasts greatly with Juliet and Romeoās first exchange, in which they build a sonnet together, the poetry blooming willingly. They often share lines (verses that would remain incomplete without each otherās input), mirroring each other through internal rhymes. But Juliet and Paris use single lines only, their dialogue plain and strict, forced.
Given that Juliet is utterly meek and obedient at the beginning of the play, I think she might have agreed to marry Paris had she never met Romeo, just to please her parents. She thinks of her own heart like a dart which her parents are to throw to their liking, her agency non-existent (āno more deep will I endart mine eye / Than your consent gives strength to make it flyā). But would she have been happy? Would she have become the fiery sun she is in the play? She is silent and submissive in the first act. But then? Boundless seas roaring within her, galloping through her dreams like fiery-footed steeds, breaking caves with her screams of love. Her poetry is raw, her thoughts radical. She feels greater than Verona itself, defying customs and prioritizing her own will.
What makes it so enchanting to me, so charmingly radical for a 400-year-old play, is that Juliet loves to contradict Romeo. Hell, to cut him off mid-sentence and teach him to express himself earnestly. O, swear not by the moon. Shut up, Romeo. Not like this. She asks him to marry her (and Iāve noticed this is something that authors and filmmakers tend to change whenever they make an adaptation of the play loosely inspired by the original dialogue). Then in the wedding scene, he asks her to describe the happiness they both feel, but she turns down his offer: āConceit, more rich in matter than in words, / Brags of his substance, not of ornament.ā She says whatever she wants, however she wants, whenever she wants. She takes control of herself. Just look at these lines. The yearning. The zeal.
And Romeo? Romeo is delighted. This foolish boy, the heir of the Montagues, expected by everyone to be bold and aggressive like the other men of his householdāhe gladly accepts Julietās assertiveness. āI would I were thy bird,ā he tells her when she says she wishes he were a little bird she could pet (she feels so intensely, she fears she might kill him with āmuch cherishingā if he were her bird). Later on, he is ecstatic when he wakes up from a dream: he dreamed Juliet found his lifeless body āAnd breathed such life with kisses in my lips / That I revived and was an emperor.ā Such life. Juliet is his prince in a shiny armor. The title of the play might be Romeo and Juliet, but the very last words are āJuliet and her Romeo.ā
Would she have displayed such ardor, such fierceness if she had never fallen in love freely? To me, Paris seems far too cold, too conventional, too sober to further Julietās yearning for liberty. Would they have become āJuliet and her Parisā? The way I see it, Paris represents everything Juliet ought to be (Capuletās obedient, shy daughter, who gets married to a count to benefit her family) and everything she is not (this exuberant, outspoken girl who secretly marries the heir of her familyās worst enemy and dreams of turning him into a constellation that will make the world fall in love with the dark).
