Juliet: The Teenager Who Is Wiser Than Everyone Around Her

Juliet is thirteen years old and more clear-eyed than every adult in the play. While Romeo is trading in Petrarchan conceits at the balcony, she is thinking practically about marriage, commitment, what it actually means to make this promise. 'What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?' she asks. She wants something real, not romantic performance.

She is also completely alone. Her mother is cold and political. Her father turns violent when she refuses Paris. The Nurse, her closest confidante, advises her to marry Paris after Romeo's banishment. That betrayal isolates her entirely.

Her courage at the end of Act 4 is the play's most overlooked moment. She is about to drink something whose effects she cannot predict, in a tomb, alone, on the strength of a plan she has no certainty will work. She does it anyway. When she wakes in Act 5, Scene 3 to find Romeo dead beside her, she does not hesitate. She is the play's most decisive character. The tragedy is that she is surrounded by people who are not.