Romeo and Juliet — Act 4, Scene 2 Summary & Analysis — CliffsNotes (2024)

FAQs

How would you summarize Act 4 Scene 2 Romeo and Juliet? ›

Act 4, scene 2 Capulet energetically directs preparations for the wedding. When Juliet returns from Friar Lawrence and pretends to have learned obedience, Capulet is so delighted that he moves the wedding up to the next day and goes off to tell Paris the new date.

Act 2, scene 4 Mercutio and Benvolio meet the newly enthusiastic Romeo in the street. Romeo defeats Mercutio in a battle of wits. The Nurse finds Romeo, and he gives her a message for Juliet: meet me at Friar Lawrence's cell this afternoon, and we will there be married.

Summary: Macduff's wife, Lady Macduff, questions Ross about her husband fleeing to England. She doesn't understand why he would leave his family defenseless at a time like this. Ross tries to reassure her, but no sooner does he leave than a messenger arrives to tell Lady Macduff and her son to run for their lives.

Juliet asks her nurse to come with her to her room and help her pick out adornments for the following day. Lady Capulet reminds her that the wedding is not for two days, but Capulet says there's no sense in waiting—the wedding should take place the following day. Juliet and her nurse hurry off.

Act 4, Scene 2

Juliet arrives and tells her father that she's decided to marry Paris after all. Capulet is so thrilled he decides to move the wedding up—to the next day.

At the start of the scene, Capulet talks about his daughter with a tone of anger and contempt. By the end of the scene, he rejoices over her changed attitude, but still refers to her as a “wayward girl.”

Romeo Juliet Act 4 Scene 2- capulet moves wedding from Thursday to Wednesday, but this passage confuses me.

She tells him that Juliet has sent her to talk with Romeo and receive a message from him—but before she does, she wants to warn the young man not to “lead her into a fool's paradise.” Romeo insists that his love for Juliet is true and asks the nurse to tell Juliet to come up with an excuse to go to confession that ...

The Nurse warns Romeo that he had better not attempt to “deal double” with Juliet, and Romeo assures her he is not. He asks the Nurse to tell Juliet to find some way to attend confession at Friar Lawrence's cell that afternoon; there they will be married.

The murder of Lady Macduff and her young son in Act 4, scene 2, marks the moment in which Macbeth descends into utter madness, killing neither for political gain nor to silence an enemy, but simply out of a furious desire to do harm.

What is the purpose of Scene 4 Act 2? ›

In Act 2, Scene 4 of Romeo and Juliet, there is a fair amount of joking around among Benvolio, Mercutio, and Romeo, but the most important things that happen are that we learn that Tybalt is aggressively challenging the Montagues to a fight and Romeo and the nurse set up a plan for Romeo and Juliet to get married.

In "Romeo and Juliet", a complication is the fact that Capulet and the servingmen are planning the wedding even when Juliet refused to get married. "A peevish self-willed harlofry it is" (IV, ii, 13). Capulet is planning the wedding without consent of Juliet and he knows that she will refuse to marry Paris.

As Capulet is making arrangements for the wedding feast, Juliet appears, begs her father's pardon, and tells him that she will marry Paris. This makes Capulet so happy that he moves the wedding up to the very next day, Wednesday.

Figurative Language

I'll have this knot knit up tomorrow morning." This is an example of a metaphor. By Capulet saying "I will have this knot knit up tomorrow morning.", he is saying that Juliet and Paris will get married. He is comparing their marriage to tying a knot, like the saying "Tying the knot."

Act 4, scene 5 The Nurse finds Juliet in the deathlike trance caused by the Friar's potion and announces Juliet's death. Juliet's parents and Paris join the Nurse in lamentation. Friar Lawrence interrupts them and begins to arrange Juliet's funeral.

Juliet's father forces her into a marriage with Count Paris. To avoid this marriage, Juliet takes a potion, given her by the friar, that makes her appear dead. The friar will send Romeo word to be at her family tomb when she awakes. The plan goes awry, and Romeo learns instead that she is dead.

Act 4, scene 4 The Capulets and the Nurse stay up all night to get ready for the wedding. Capulet, hearing Paris approach with musicians, orders the Nurse to wake Juliet. Act 4, scene 5 The Nurse finds Juliet in the deathlike trance caused by the Friar's potion and announces Juliet's death.

The friar proposes a plan: Juliet must consent to marry Paris; then, on the night before the wedding, she must drink a sleeping potion that will make her appear to be dead; she will be laid to rest in the Capulet tomb, and the friar will send word to Romeo in Mantua to help him retrieve her when she wakes up.

In addition to developing the plot by which Romeo and Juliet will wed, Act 2, scene 4 offers a glimpse of Romeo among his friends. Romeo shows himself to be as proficient and bawdy a punner as Mercutio.