How Juliet Can Be Recontextualised

How Shakespeare’s Juliet can be recontextualised
The original play by Shakespeare and Zeffirelli and Luhrmann’s interpretation of the play are all different versions of the classical tragic story of Romeo and Juliet. When reading the play or seeing Zeffirelli and Luhrmann’s film we can observe various differences between them. Juliet, being one of the dominating characters of this story can be seen to be recontextualised differently through her personality, looks and role in society.
Juliet’s personality and character is one of the most obvious and significant element that has been recontextualised. In Shakespeare’s play, Juliet is described to be more than just a pretty face; she’s smart, witty, determined and mature. She knows what she wants, and she gets it as it is Juliet who proposes to Romeo not the other way around. In the text, she is written to be thirteen years of age and begins the play as a naïve child who has thought little about love and marriage, but she grows up quickly upon falling in love with Romeo. Being a girl from a high social class family, she has none of the freedom Romeo has to roam around the city or climb over walls at midnight. However she shows amazing courage in trusting her life and future to Romeo, refusing to believe the worst reports about him and even willing to shut important people out of her life (nurse) the moment they turn against Romeo. "And when I shall die, take him and cut him up in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine that the entire world will fall in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun." Juliet’s role in society is very minor and simple. She is the pretty, ‘prized’ daughter of the Capulets and is expected to be obedient of men in their families. In the novel, she receives little guidance and help from her family and is expected to marry Paris as her father decided. This gives a clear example of women’s role and its unimportance.

On the contrary, in Zeffirelli’s film we focus more on Juliet’s beauty and youthfulness as the actress who played Juliet seemed very young and had that ‘innocent’ child look on her face. The maturity of Juliet shown in Shakespeare’s text is greatly dimmed in Zeffirelli’s as with the youthful look of Juliet, it questions the audience making them treat and think of Juliet as a child, therefore not taking her or even her motives seriously. However Juliet is shown to be more cautious in this film, not being too rash or sudden. An example of this is at Romeo and Juliet’s first meeting, Juliet carefully looks at Romeo through the crowd of people, peeping through people’s heads and keeping her distance as if she was studying him before coming closer and closer to him. "Although I join in thee I have no joy in this contract tonight it is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden.”

The Juliet that Luhrmann presents to us is also differently recontextualised. One of the first things the audience takes attention on is how the actress that played Juliet looks so much older, definitely not only thirteen. This is because of the different time periods each movie/novel was set or created in as it is the 20th century and human’s behaviour has changed as they do not marry young, in fact that’s shunned upon. The role of women in society is also changed as women do have rights in the 20th century and can make their own decisions. An example of this is in the opening scene of Luhrmann’s film, a newspaper report with important information about the star-crossed lovers was being read by a dark-skinned female. This choice of using a female to read this important information indicates that we have stepped into a completely different era with the role of women being of equal importance as men. However Luhrmann’s Juliet is not only living in a completely different recontextualised society, but has different qualities in character and what makes her stand out is her strong confidence that the others do not have. She gains this by putting herself out there, getting involved in decisions and engaged in her relationships. With this in mind, it is also no doubt that this Juliet is also very mature as she can take control in situations. This is shown through her first encounter with Romeo as she is the one the initially makes the first move by kissing him, stealing the control of the situation. Both the camera angles and dramatic lighting on Juliet’s face in that scene show that Luhrmann wanted to make Juliet the centre of attention there. Juliet also has a very straight-forward personality as she does not dwell on things and does what she thinks. This can question the audience is it shows that Juliet is both stubborn and fearless at the same time. Therefore it can be seen that Shakespeare’s Juliet can be recontextualised differently by her character and personality as Shakespeare, Zeffirelli and Luhrmann have all created their Juliet with at least one quality different about each other.

It can be seen that Shakespeare’s Juliet can be recontextualised through her different personality and character, looks and role in society. This is shown by Shakespeare’s novel and Zeffirelli and Luhrmann’s film.