1. What effect does the accelerated time scheme have on the play’s development? Is it plausible that a love story of this magnitude could take place so quickly? Does the play seem to take place over as little time as it actually occupies?

2. Compare and contrast the characters of Romeo and Juliet. How do they develop throughout the play? What makes them fall in love with one another?

3. Compare and contrast the characters of Tybalt and Mercutio. Why does Mercutio hate Tybalt?

4. How does the suicidal impulse that both Romeo and Juliet exhibit relate to the overall theme of young love? Does Shakespeare seem to consider a self-destructive tendency inextricably connected with love, or is it a separate issue? Why do you think so?

5. Discuss the relationships between parents and children in Romeo and Juliet. How do Romeo and Juliet interact with their parents? Are they rebellious, in the modern sense? How do their parents feel about them?

6. Apart from clashing with Tybalt, what role does Mercutio play in the story? Is he merely a colorful supporting character and brilliant source of comic relief, or does he serve a more serious purpose?

7. How does Shakespeare treat death in Romeo and Juliet? Frame your answer in terms of legal, moral, familial, and personal issues. Bearing these issues in mind, compare the deaths of Romeo and Juliet, Romeo and Mercutio, and Mercutio and Tybalt.

8. Love manifests itself in a multitude of ways in the play. Compare and contrast Romeo’s love for Rosaline with Romeo’s love for Juliet. Consider love as it exists in the Capulet household. How does love operate between Lord and Lady Capulet, Juliet, the Nurse, and Tybalt?

9. Some readers consider the final scene in which both Romeo and Juliet die to be triumphant. In addition to the families being reconciled, how is the final scene triumphant?

10. Consider Lord Capulet’s personality. How do his moods change and why? How does these mood swings affect Juliet, and how do they affect the course of the play?

11. Compare and contrast Romeo’s reaction to the news of his banishment with Juliet’s reaction.

12. Examine the role of Escalus, the Prince, as the play’s figure of authority. How far is he to blame for what happens?

13. Some critics have said that Shakespeare had to kill Mercutio as he was becoming such a compelling characters that he detracted from Romeo and Juliet. Do you agree? Why or why not?

14. Light in its various forms recurrs throughout the play. How does light mirror the action? How does the author use light to describe the characters and the changes they undergo?

15. As the Friar picks his herbs, he tells us that nature’s tomb is also her womb and that what dies gives birth to new life. How do the Friar’s words anticipate upcoming events? Do you think that the Friar proactively creates events that follow, or does he react to situations that are beyond his control? Explain.

16. Juliet is a very young girl; however, she shoulders a great deal of responsibility and manages a series of very difficult situations. Discuss Juliet’s maturity level and compare it to Romeo’s. Compare Juliet early in the play with Juliet later in the play. How has she changed? When did she change? Why did those changes occur?

17. The first Prologue describes Romeo and Juliet as, “A pair of star-cross’d lovers.” Examine the way Shakespeare uses cosmic imagery in the play to emphasize the connection between Romeo and Juliet and their tragic deaths.

18. Shakespeare makes the plot of Romeo and Juliet rely on the delivery of crucial messages. Explain the importance of these various messages and the problems with the messengers.

19. Dreams often play an important part in Shakespearean dramas. At several points in the play, the characters have dreams. Sometimes they interpret them correctly, and other times they don’t. Discuss these instances and how the characters’ reactions to those dreams affect the action in the play. How do the characters interpret or misinterpret their dreams?

20. The feud between the families seems to be an ever-present concern for the characters. How does the feud drive the action of the play. How do the various characters manifest the feud?

21. Consider the broader social context of the play. If Romeo and Juliet die partly through their own excess (sympathetic though we may be to it), and partly through accident, their life is also doomed by the intemperance of the society they are a part of. Look at the speeches of Prince Escalus (1. 1. 84-106, and 5. 3. 287ff.).How important do you think the wider issues of society are in the personal tragedies of Romeo and Juliet? What is the effect of the final reconciliation of the families?

22. Are there some parts of the play you find less effective than others? I am personally unable to read wholly seriously the passage where the members of the Capulet household lament Juliet's apparent death (4. 5. 17-64).

23. I have mentioned something of the use of the images of light and dark in the play, and the way that their values become inverted (light is threatening, darkness welcoming). You may want to make note of other places in the play where similar images are developed.

24. What part does fate play in the lovers' downfall?

25. Follow Juliet's growth from innocence to experience.

26. Trace Romeo's growing maturity over the course of the play.

27. What does the Prince represent, and how does he structure the play?

28. Contrast Romeo's and Juliet's view of love to Mercutio's and the Nurse's.

29. Contrast Romeo and Juliet's personalities in the balcony scene.

30. What is Paris' role in the play? How does he cause Romeo and Juliet's downfall?

31. Compare the Nurse's and the Friar's roles as counsellors to Romeo and Juliet.

32. Follow the images of light and dark through the play.

33. Trace Juliet's growing sense of isolation.

34. Compare Romeo's love for Rosaline with his love for Juliet. You could also compare the Montagues' love for Romeo with the Capulets' love for Juliet. Contrast Romeo and Juliet's Views of Life and Love with the Nurse's and Mercutio's Views. Which is more truthful-the lovers' idealistic view of the world, or Mercutio and the Nurse's earthy view?

35. What is the idea of Romantic love, and how does the story of Romeo and Juliet follow this pattern? How does the story deviate from the pattern?

36. What events demonstrate the power of hatred? What demonstrates the power of love? Which wins in the end?

37. How does Juliet view sex in 3.2? How does the Nurse view sex? Mercutio? Friar Lawrence? Whose views do you agree with? Whose views do you think Shakespeare was most sympathetic to?

38. Is the feud a serious thing? Who treats it seriously? Who doesn't? Does hatred keep it going, or fate? Why must Romeo and Juliet die to end it?

39. What role does fate play in Romeo and Juliet? Are the lovers doomed from the start? What part do accidents and miscalculations play in the story?

40. Is there a higher power in control of this tragedy, and who is working it all out for the best? Where are the repeated references to God and the supernatural? Is the end of the play a victory? Has a plan been worked out? Is order restored?

41. How does Romeo's character lead to his death? Juliet's character? Who else's character adds to their downfall?

42. What was the Elizabethan view of passion? Is passion the sin that causes the tragedy? What kinds of passion do we see during the play? Who warns against passion? What images are used as illustrations of passion? Do the warnings come true?

43. What is the relationship between Juliet and her mother? Her father? How do her parents relate to each other? How do these relationships lead to the tragic ending?

44. How do Romeo and Juliet's friends, Mercutio, the Nurse, and Friar Lawrence, bring about their deaths?

45. How often does the plot depend on messages? How do these messages go from the silly invitation to the Capulets' party, to the tragically missing letter from the Friar? How do we see messages garbled from the beginning?

46. What actions spring from unawareness of the situation? How does Mercutio act in ignorance? The Capulets? Paris? Prince Escalus?