Answer question 1 and two more of the questions below.

1. Develop a Life of the Action diagram for either Juliet or Friar Lawrence in this act.

2. To what extent do you think there are two Juliets in this act? Look at her language, and the way in which she speaks to the many characters with whom she interacts in this scene.

3. Dramatic irony is often created by the audience's awareness of a fate in store for the characters of which they themselves are unaware. The distance between what is expected and what actually occurs measures the intensity of the author's use of dramatic irony. How does Shakespeare use dramatic irony in Act IV and what does he achieve through that use?

4. Romeo and Juliet is full of the unintended consequences of actions. What events in Act IV are the unintended consequences of earlier speeches, actions or decisions, and what actions in Act IV create unintended consequences later?

5. Look at the mourning speeches of the Capulets, the Nurse, and Paris in scene v. If you were the director of Romeo and Juliet, what would you want the audience to understand from your staging of these scenes, and why? Are the characters simply mourning for Juliet, or do their emotions lead them to express ideas relating to major themes in the play?

(question 2 above is adapted from Rex Gibson's writing prompts in the New Cambridge edition of Romeo and Juliet)

(image source: the title page to the First Folio of Shakespeare's works, University of Pennsylvania)