Characters in Romeo and Juliet with the Capulets' only daughter, Juliet. Later that night, he and Juliet meet secretly and pledge to marry, despite their families' long-standing feud. They marry the following day, but their union is soon thrown into chaos by their families; Juliet's cousin Tybalt duels and kills Romeo's friend Mercutio, throwing Romeo into such a rage that he kills Tybalt, and the Prince of Verona subsequently banishes him. Meanwhile, Juliet's father plans to marry her off to Paris, a local aristocrat, within the next few days, threatening to turn her out on the streets if she doesn't follow through. Desperate, Juliet begs
Romeo and Juliet early in the play, and when he learns of Juliet's death, he defies the stars' course for him. Another central theme is haste: Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" spans a period of four to six days, in contrast to Brooke's poem's spanning nine months. Scholars such as G. Thomas Tanselle believe that time was "especially important to Shakespeare" in this play, as he used references to "short-time" for the young lovers as opposed to references to "long-time" for the "older generation" to highlight "a headlong rush towards doom". Romeo and Juliet fight time to make their love last forever. In the