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Dann werden euch die nachstehenden in Englisch verfassten Informationen bestimmt behilflich sein:

- how does Friar Lawrence help?
·He is ready to act instead of just talking (as the Nurse does)
·He gives Juliet the poison
·He marries Juliet and Romeo

- evaluation of his help:
·His help is better than the help of the Nurse as he acts in a more appropriate way
·He is ready see the situation from the lover’s perspective, not only the parents' perspective.
·Also to mention is his intention to end the family fight between Montagues and Capulets by bringing Romeo and Juliet together.

-the risks for all of them as Elizabethans:
For Friar Lawrence:
·He could loose his “job” as a Friar
·He acts against the 10 commandments and therefore against the church's will
·The people of Verona could loose their faith in him
·He could debase himself in the “chain of being” (acting against God’s will, etc.)
For Romeo and Juliet:
·Romeo/Juliet could be persecuted, hung, imprisoned, killed or banished
·As well as F.L. they could reduce himself in rank as to the “chain of being”
·They could be punished by God è foreshadowing of their death

- Was Friar Lawrence justified to help Romeo and Juliet?
·Somebody had to help them and he is a monk after all
·It was acceptable that Romeo told him his secret and about his pain of love but Friar Lawrence should have not given them advice that really are against the church's or God’s will, because all three of them will be guilty in the end and will suffer of these actions.

- the nurse’s refuse to help:
·at first she even protects Juliet against her father (l. 168) and blames him for Juliet’s harm
·nurse gets attacked by Capulet à he forbids her to speak (l. 174)
·after her speech and her ask for help, Juliet wants the nurse’s support but the nurse now decides on Paris (wants Juliet to take him instead of Romeo)
·the nurse seems impressed by the thread of the Capulets to negate their daughter (because she totally changed her mind after Capulet’s speech) (l. 213)
·in the end she even says to Juliet that she wishes her to marry Paris by her heart and soul (Nurse entscheidet sich aus Angst "gegen" Juliet) à Juliet does no longer want to stay with her nurse

"Gender Roles" 

Juliet sehr emanzipiert, da sie sich gegen den Willen ihrer Eltern mit Romeo einlässt.

Sie entscheiden sich beide für die Liebe und nicht für die Familientradition.

Allgemein: beide aus wohlhabenden Familien und deswegen gut erzogen & gebildet (Gegensatz zur Nurse)

1) Romeo is lovesick:
-his love love for J. is not requited
-he idealizes her/puts her on the pedestal
-she is "untouchable" --> conventional

2) Romeo falls in love with Julliet at first sight - he praises her beauty in a conventional way
but then the two of them join together in a sonnet: Julliet has an active part in this flirt --> unconventional!!

3) he breaks the rules by trespassing the Capulet's property in order to see J. again. He risks his life. He swears that he loves her --> conventional

4) The get married without their parents consent --> breaking the rules!

5) When Tybalt challenges R. to a duel R. calms him down --> offers love instead of hate -->contrary to role expectations --> unconventional

6) R. avenges Mercutio's death, blames himself for beeing to "effiminate" --> becomes aware of his social duty

Throughout Romeo and Juliet, by Wiliam Shakespeare, there is an overlaying presence of the typical roles that men and women were supposed to play. During Elizabethan times there was a major difference between the way men and women were supposed to act. Men typically were supposed to be masculine and powerful, and defend the honor. Women, on the other hand, were supposed to be subservient to their men in their lives and do as they wished. In Romeo and Juliet the typical gender roles that men and women were supposed to play had an influence on the fate of their lives.

Juliet:
- adresses with Madam to her mother= distance

First: obedient, dutiful daughter, wants to fulfil her parents' whishes

Later: she is more self-confident, doesn't submit to her father's wills and intentions (marriage)  + resists when her mother says that she has to marry Paris
à obidient, dutiful daugther BUT does not give herself up à self-assurance

à doesn't fulfil her role as a daughter because she rebels against her parents!

à becomes a new person: independent (except for the love that binds her to her husband)

-in her relationship with Romeo she is loving,caring,devoted to her husband,willing to die for him
à fulfils her role as a wife!

She is NOT the disdainful lady who is the addressee of Petrarchan love poetry! She can be coy and beguiling (as she is with paris), but she prefers to be honest, to be frank, rather than coy (when she talks to Romeo).
She is also torn between the conflicting emotions of love for her new husband and concern over her cousin's death.
à rises to a tragic stature: develops from a heroine of light comedy to a heroine tragedy!

Romeo
- rebels against his family à doesn't fulfil his role as a son!
- loving and caring husband à fulfils his role as a husband!

- petrarchan lover, but kills Tybalt bound by honor and friendship

Father Capulet
- he is superior, Juliet and her mother are inferior to him, have to submit to his wills
- his family is wealthy and respected, he is responsible for the material support of the family
à fulfils his role as the head of the family!

Mother Capulet
- she does everything her husband wants, is inferior, obedient, would never try to impose her will
à fulfils her role as a wife!

- is dominant à authority
- educated
- wants Juliet to marry but only educated high-status family (arranged marriage) à prestige
- she is WIFE and MOTHER but MARRIAGE FOR HER: business, social status

Nurse
- she does not feel very estemeed, believes in fate; not too educated

- she IS dominated

- loves Juliet like her own child (died)
- caring for Juliet (in contrast to her mother (not the real mother status in our times)
à she is the MOTHERFIGURE
- MARRIAGE for her=sexuality, fun, joy of life=part of the relationship

Gender Roles in Modern Family

Traditional education creates, in time, an incomplete image on family’s gender roles. From generation to generation children interiorize theirs parent’s model known as “separated world’s myth”- a wife and a mother only cooking , doing laundry and taking care of the child “contrasting” with a husband and a father working or fixing different things. According to this mentality each partner has established responsibilities in private and public life that other one couldn’t take over.

Changing traditional gender roles seems to be difficult not because woman or man don’t have the necessary skills for other one’s tasks but because every one carries on a symbol of his “world”. Society’s evolution especially on woman valorization redefines gender roles promoting a woman more active, ambitious and independent and a man more emotional ad involved in household tasks.

Women of our days have more liberty to choose between the “family model”- these ones are being more obedient and anchored in tradition (the feminine type), the “feminist model”- who’s priority is the career (the anti-feminine type) or the middle model adopted by the “double career” type of woman- profession and family. On the base of any of these choices are variables like social-status, race, education level, culture’s values etc.

We are assisting to a reprioritization of woman needs and so professional success became more interesting and even attractive than family one probably because it brings something new. Women are motivated to choose the career by elements as the wish for financial independency, the need to prove her capacities, to open and better integrate in modern society and the possibility to control and not being only controlled. All this reasons offer her a psychological equilibrium.

Most of the men consider women’s career as a conflict source having arguments like: women will neglect theirs family attributions, the imminent change of man’s authority, his incertitude concerning the professional competition and the risk to deteriorate the marital relation. Even at first side man and children are felling the stress generated by the new status of woman, she’s living an interior conflict as well. Woman need to
understand her need for self-accomplishment but the remains of traditional mentality still affect her modern vision.

So our children should make a difference on gender roles perspective but we are in a vicious circle because every family is raising their kids for a passed time, influenced by their own mentality and resistance to change. The main idea is that both women and men should consider this role’s exchange like a challenge and also accept that a man as well as a woman can do anything with willing.

Gender roles in the rennaisance
Education: high qualification is important only for men
Housework: belong to women, men partially unwanted
Decision making: men have the last say
child care: women

Romeo & Juliet
Education: Romeo talks of school books
Housework: Juliet will coordinate the maids
Decision making: Juliet has to follow her father
Child care: Juliet

Gender roles in general
Education: Both genders nearly equal
Hosework: individually shared
Decison making: together
Child care: both are responsible

à Gender roles are changing