@amber_is_in_a_loop
We had to write an emphatic response, and mine is based off the moment Juliet learns of Tybalt's death in Romeo and Juliet
We had to write an emphatic response, and mine is based off the moment Juliet learns of Tybalt's death in Romeo and Juliet
My Nurse ran into my room with news to break the strongest of hearts.
My cousin, dead, slaughtered, and at the hands of the man that I love no less! What could I do but let love turn to hate, and grief drown all other sense?
That was, however, not my first thought. When she ran into my room in her flustered state, and let only a few words come tumbling out, I received the news of a completely different situation: that my Romeo, my love, my husband, had died by his own hand. I never thought about what grief would feel like before, but as that message entered and registered in my mind, I felt the former stronger than I imagine anyone else ever could have; the thought of losing my three hours’ husband to such a sin was more than I could have taken.
Then the message was clarified: Romeo was not dead. Nothing else mattered other than that fact, until my Nurse cried about my fallen cousin.
Still, my own feelings were clear: there was barely any room for grief in my relief. Within that realization, the guilt overtook me. I had denied my honourable cousin any of the room in my heart that he so deserved, all for the sake of a man of enemy blood!
Once again, guilt, but of another source– I did not agree with my own thoughts. Romeo is not an enemy. And my cousin did not deserve any of my thoughts, for he would have killed my husband had the latter not done it first.
Those were my family’s thoughts and opinions, no longer shared by me. What did that mean? It took me no more than a moment for my mind to comprehend said meaning: I was no longer a Capulet. Despite my long and painful childhood as the Capulet’s obedient and gentle daughter, the trophy wife to be, I’ve long considered the meaning of a name to not be as powerful as the general public may think. My current situation only makes this point stronger: no longer am I Juliet Capulet, sweet and malleable. I’m now Juliet, with a free will and a free mind. I am Juliet, who loves Romeo, and only Romeo.
Let my family cry for their cousin, my tears shall be spent when their own are dry, for Romeo’s banishment. Romeo banished… it may as well be that my father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet are all slain, all dead.
There is a source to my pain as well as the greatest joy I have and will ever know, one and the same: my love for Romeo. It seems to me as though there is nothing in my life other than it, and I never imagined it this way. I never imagined love would enter my life, and not like this, not as sudden and strong and all-consuming. I don’t think about anything else; Nurse is not my sole source of comfort. Father is not the male figure in my life. Mother does not have the power to make decisions anymore. Only Romeo, my Romeo, knows my soul. Only he knows me through and through, and yet he loves me more than anyone that raised me could. Is that not a holy thing?
There is only one person I worry for: the one who was promised my hand. Does the Count Paris deserve abandonment? My Father has already agreed to the marriage due two days from now, and when I run from him I will be to him the beautiful tyrant that left him at the altar. And yet… my father made the decision. I never consented. Maybe, then, my escape would be valid.
Either way, he will not have me. I have power over my life, and from now on only my hand will wield it. Only I will be in control of my weal or woe. Whatever I need to do to claim my life and move in the direction I decide is best, I’ll do so. Freedom is my new priority.
I don’t know what this will take. Violence? I can do it. Hurt? No more than earlier. Death? Well then, I resign myself to the vile earth. How to go about it? Only one person near my heart knows the roads to and from sin: Friar Lawrence will help me.
@Shuri-Nerites-is-a-shrimp-again
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