Juliet Capulet And Nora Helmer Comparison

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Juliet Capulet and Nora Helmer are two wealthy and very privileged women. But, even though they lived in different time periods both of them are unhappy with their lives. Both Juliet and Nora will fight for their independence and overcome their own flaws, restraints set in place by their families, and society to earn it. When Shakespeare first wrote Romeo and Juliet he did not include much relating to sports and games. One very important activity that was included in the play is the sport of fencing or sword fighting. There are examples of this during the opening skirmish in act one (Probst 773), when Tybalt kills Mercutio who is later slain by Romeo (Probst 821), and when Romeo kills Paris in front of Juliet’s tomb (Probst 867). Possessing considerable fencing skills was not only respectable in the Elizabethan Era; it was required of most if not all males of noble decent. This means that Romeo, Tybalt, Mercutio, and all the other males were either very skilled fencers or training to become exceptional fencers. To be able to become a skilled swordsman a person had to endure years of rigorous training. To put things into perspective a knight during this time would start his training at the age of seven as a Page. This training would end at the age of fourteen when the young man would train as a Squire until he was twenty-one. Fourteen years of training separated a young nobleman from life as a knight. This is the training that Romeo or Tybalt would have gone through as young boys. In modern fencing the foil, a light weight, flexible sword with a blunt tip, is the weapon of choice. But during Shakespeare’s time period any blade would do the trick but the most common weapons were the Rapier and the Broadsword. The Rapier is a sharp slender blade that had an advantage in speed. It was mainly used as a “thrusting weapon” and could prove devastating if it was used by

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