Romeo doesn’t know that. Lord Capulet and Paris think that Juliet is weeping for her dead cousin Tybalt, and that marrying Paris sooner rather than later is just the cure for her sadness. This is an example of… Dramatic irony: the audience knows the real reason why Juliet is crying: Romeo has been banished.

Romeo says that he has a bad feeling about going to the party and he says that he fears for his own life. This foreshadows his death, which is also an example of dramatic irony because the reader knows that Romeo will die during the play.

The moment that Romeo and Juliet meet certainly is an example of dramatic irony because the reader knows that, due to their families’ feud, the two young people are supposed to be enemies, but neither Romeo nor Juliet have realized this yet.

What’s ironic about the conversation between Juliet and Paris in act 4, scene 1 of Romeo and Juliet is that Paris has no clue that Juliet’s words have a double meaning that alludes to her and Romeo’s secret marriage.

Romeo’s age is never given, but since he carries a sword, it can be assumed that he is not younger than Juliet’s thirteen years. It is much more likely that, given his immature responses to problematic events in the play, that he is probably about sixteen or seventeen years old.

Shakespeare cuts three years off Juliet’s age to make her the tender age of 13: as Old Capulet says to Paris, ‘she hath not seen the change of fourteen years’. Eventually, he puts his foot down by telling Juliet, if ‘you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend’.

In Act I, scene iii, we learn that Juliet will turn fourteen in a little more than two weeks, meaning that she’s thirteen during the events of the play. Legally, girls in Elizabethan England could marry as young as 12 with parental consent.

Juliet: Yes. Pregnant. Romeo: With my child? Juliet: Yes of course with your child!

Juliet is 13, but if you look at the calendar of the time, she turns 14 when she wakes up; so she is technically of legal age when she kills herself. Romeo is probably about 17.

Mercutio died at what we think is the age of 16 or 17. He was killed by Tybalt in a courtyard, Romeo was trying to stop their fight but Tybalt stabbed Mercutio.

Although he has no known last name, it is a fact that he is related to Count Paris and Prince Escalus; he is also a very close friend to Romeo Montague and Benvolio (who also has no known last name). Mercutio is one of the few characters who can freely “roam” between both the Capulet and Montague houses.

Mercutio is upset because Romeo got in the way of his fight with Tybalt, and caused his injury. He knows he is dying. When he says, “I have it, and soundly too” you can think of it as “I’ve had it!

Tybalt