Similarities Between Romeo And Juliet

How do Shakespeare and Heaney present strong feelings between fathers and their children in the texts you have studied?

Both Shakespeare and Heaney present relationships between fathers and their children. Shakespeare through Capulet and Juliet and Heaney through his poetry about his father. Both these differ in context, the Capulet trials and tribulations being fictional whereas Heaney has his own personal experiences shown in his poetry. In addition both contexts affect the relationships in hand.
In act 1 scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare portrays Capulet as an altruistic character and is conversing with Paris about the latter’s marriage proposal in a way that is protective. This protectiveness is shown by the Quote “She’s the
hopeful lady of my earth” which indicates the feeling that Juliet is the only hope of Capulet’s life, the only child of his body, and the sole heir to the estate. Shakespeare uses this to show that Juliet will grow up in a different earth to the ground where Capulet’s children are buried thus demonstrating the strong protective side between father and daughter. This is also made known on line 10-11 “let 2 more summers wither in their pride, ere we may think her ripe to be a bride” This implies that Paris should wait a couple of year as Juliet is not yet “ripe”. This could mean that she is not yet ready for the picking (like a commodity) and is brought or sold however being “owned” by their father in this time was not unusual. Capulet’s alteria motive is for her to marry and have children however at this time she is too young. In line 17 Capulet shows kindness by communicating to Paris that Juliet must give consent for his wish to be accepted. Another feeling of kindness that Shakespeare portrays is in line 8 where Juliet is “yet a stranger to the world”. This shows that she is not ready for marriage as she is just a girl and not a woman. Capulet believes that Juliet needs to know more before she meets new challenges head on. It is as if he wants her to get to know the world before it gets to know her. This is implied further by the hopeful lady of my earth where Capulet denies the suitor his pride and displays paternal protection. Finally in this scene line 14 “earth has swallowed all my hopes but she” shows that all the other children are dead and buried and that Juliet is his only hope. At this point Shakespeare perceives that Capulet may only be concerned with the preservation of his line. Similarly Heaney alludes to the preservation of his “family roots “in metaphors of the earth and in the description of his father within Follower.
The central idea in Follower is the way the relationship between parents and children shifts through time.
Heaney moves from the perspective of a young, admiring son to an exasperated one. The child literally followed in his father’s footsteps as he ploughed or worked around the farm but he also follows him in a generational way. Finally, he is ruefully aware of his father’s dependence upon him, realising that his responsibility “will not go away”. The opening stanza presents the poet’s father as a very strong farmer whose physical strength is exceptional. Heaney presents his younger self’s admiration for his father by using the “globed” shape to imply that his father was his world just as Juliet is Capulet’s world. The description of his “shoulders globed like a full sail strung” creates a strong visual image of physical effort. The second stanza opens with a short sentence that sums up the ploughman in just two words; he is “An expert.” The expertise claimed for the father by the admiring son is proven in the actual execution of the work in hand. The words “angled”, “mapped” and “exactly” tell us that the business of ploughing is very skilled and that being good at it requires a great deal of know how; there is a good deal more to it than meets the eye. The first three stanzas concentrate on the poet’s father in a sense of admiration but the last three focus upon his own position as a child. Like all little boys, the poet wanted to emulate his father. The fact that he
observed him minutely is revealed as he has clearly noticed that in order to achieve a good line he had to “close one eye”, and to keep control of the plough he had to “stiffen” an arm. The size of his father is emphasised again and his “broad shadow” is something that the child will be under until he is an independent adult. The concluding stanza both develops the way in which the poet as boy felt as if he was a “nuisance, tripping, falling, and yapping always.” (Lines 21-22) and also presents us with another “turn” as the relationship between father and son shifts in time. This is signalled by the word “But” and the shift in tense of the verbs from past to present. This poem is an affectionate portrait of a strong man but it is also honest about the way we can all feel impatient with our parents at times just as Juliet feels annoyed with Capulet in Shakespeare’s act 3:5 where we see the worst of Capulet.
In Act 1 scene 5 we can see a different side of Capulet on show with a light hearted self at the beginning of the scene and an angry tone by the end. Tybalt is portrayed as a son to Capulet and while Tybalt does not want Romeo in the ball, Capulet shows kindness toward Romeo as he doesn’t want to upset the ball as it is for Juliet (this shows a sense of kindness and altruism) and he wants her to find love. This kindness is shown in the quote “and to say the truth, Verona brags of him”. In line 73 “an ill- beseeming semblance for a feast” shows Capulet’s light hearted side towards Tybalt and presents the idea that it is an unsuitable appearance to a feast. This caring sense then becomes a feeling of anger and Capulet believes that Romeo should be allowed to remain at the ball as it is for Juliet. This anger is let out in the phrase “Am I the master here, or you?” which could foreshadow the anger in Act 3 Scene 5. In mid- term break by Heaney we also see a different side of Heaney’s father just as Shakespeare shows the different side in the latter scenes.
Heaney chooses to focus more upon the reaction of his parents in order to convey the shocking impact of the death of their little boy by showing the different side to his father in mid-term break. We must careful not to assume the “I” in a poem is, in fact, the poet. In this case, though, we may be sure that Mid-Term Break is purely and intensely autobiographical. The poet is driven home by his neighbours and not his parents, another unusual event preparing the reader for the idea that something is terribly wrong. However in Shakespeare’s play Juliet is looked after by a nurse and this was not uncommon. The fact that Heaney remembers the precise time, “two o’clock” is convincing as we all tend to remember precise timings when recalling traumatic, life changing events. Stanza two concentrates on the poet’s father’s emotional response who is “crying”. Heaney tells us that his father “had always taken funerals in his stride” but this death is unnatural as well as personal. The loss of a little child is unbearable for the normally rock solid father who would, we assume, be the sort of man to offer words of comfort to others just as “Big Jim Evans” offers his to Heaney’s family in “saying it was a hard blow.” (Line 6) There is a terrible double meaning in the phrase “hard blow” because Jim Evans, by referring to the emotional impact of the son’s death, also unwittingly uses language that recalls the impact of the car that killed him. Heaney goes on to concentrate upon his mother’s reaction to her little boys’ death who says nothing but holds his hand in her own as she “coughed out angry tearless sighs” (line 13). The implication here is that she has cried so much that there is nothing more to cry because she is incensed by the driver’s failure to avoid her son. Finally the phrase “and tell me they were sorry for my trouble” implies that Heaney is having take the place of his father and step into his shoes which he wished he could do in his poems Follower and Digging. He is finally getting this chance while his once strong father is becoming weaker.
The final scene in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet illustrates the worst of Capulet as Capulet learns of Juliet’s defiance to the arranged marriage and gets very belligerent.
He displays this with insults and emotional blackmail. In this scene Capulet expresses strong feelings of anger towards Juliet and Juliet becomes very lachrymose once she finds out of her father’s decision. In act 3 scene 5 Juliet’s marriage is out of her control. This is demonstrated in the quote “Have you delivered our decree?” which is formal and in parental control. The word “delivered” is illustrated as a gift and should be a joyous occasion. This parental control is also demonstrated in the anger felt quote “A whining Mamet” as Capulet threatens to cut her strings. This could imply that he is warning her that he will destroy her ties to the family or it could imply that she is like a puppet that is being controlled by her father. On line 155 Capulet’s anger has escalated once you reach the quote “or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither...” A “hurdle” is a wooden frame on which traitors were dragged through the streets to execution and this implies that Juliet believes that marriage is a fate worse than death. In the quote “my fingers itch” presents anger as it could mean he wants to hit Juliet but it could also mean that he is coming into money. Finally, Capulet shows a threatening feeling in the quote “Hang, beg, starve, and die in the streets” which is short load speaking commands that
demonstrates annoyance and quick, sharp firing insults. The contrast between this anger is found in the admiration from Digging.
In digging Heaney’s sense of the past is clearly articulated in the way he recalls “living roots” which are literally those that are cut through by his father and grandfather as they dig and dug and the metaphorical roots that constitute his cultural heritage, one that is rooted in agriculture. From his window, the poet sees his father digging and this triggers memories of seeing the same thing when he was a boy. He feels great pride in the physical prowess of his father and grandfather physical and their hard-working, agricultural lives. However, he also realises he “has no spade to follow men like them”, recognising that his method of “digging” will be a metaphorical one by using his pen as a spade. The poet will keep his antecedents’ culture alive by preserving it and promoting it in his writing. The quote “Between my finger and my thumb, the squat pen rests snug as a gun.” reinforces the contrast with the writer’s activity and that of his father who is engaged in the physical activity of digging, something that is observed by the poet but not shared. The observation takes the poet back “twenty years” to a time when his father was doing exactly the same thing. This establishes a sense of continuity. There is real pride in the statements made in lines 15-16: “By God, the old man could handle a spade. Just like his old man.” The tradition of working hard is focused on in the description of the poet’s grandfather who hardly stopped working except when he “straightened up” (line 20) to drink the milk his grandson took him in a bottle “Corked sloppily with paper.” (line 20).Heaney has remarked that he sees the act of writing poems as sometimes analogous to embarking upon an archaeological dig. In this poem, Heaney communicates a sensitive awareness to the need to commemorate and celebrate a way of life that is of intrinsic, dignified value, even if he cannot physically follow in the footsteps of previous generations. “…living roots awaken in my head”. Although many years have passed, the poet feels that his heritage is very much part of his poetic present and he will ensure that it will be remembered. He is, in a sense unearthing the past with his poem. This shows how Heaney presents his caring relationship with his father.
Both these texts present the different relationships. In Shakespeare’s text Capulet has different sides to him just as in Heaney show the strong side in one poem to the weaker side in mid-term break. These relationships however are very different.