Romeo and Juliet - Chapter 3

Study guide for 10th – 12th Grade

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Copywork

About This Passage

In Act III, Scene III, Friar Lawrence has just told Romeo that the Prince has banished him, and Romeo answers by arguing that exile is a death-like severing from Juliet and the world.

ROMEO. There is no world without Verona walls, But purgatory, torture, hell itself. Hence banished is banish’d from the world, And world’s exile is death. Then banished Is death misterm’d. Calling dea...

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Discussion Questions

Narration Prompt

Retell Act III as a sequence of public violence, legal judgment, private grief, household pressure, and forced parting, then name the moment that most changes what exile means.

Discussion Questions

  1. In Scene I, Romeo first says he loves Tybalt and urges Mercutio and Tybalt to stop, then turns to fury after Mercutio dies and kills Tybalt. How does this staged reversal complicate a judgment of Romeo's responsibility?
  2. Benvolio recounts the fight, Lady Capulet demands justice, Montague pleads for Romeo's life, and the Prince orders exile. How do these four responses make the same killing carry competing claims about justice?

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Vocabulary Builder

Item 1

In Scene II, Juliet tells the Nurse that Romeo's banishment has slain ten thousand Tybalts; the noun makes exile a death-like private catastrophe.

Item 2

In Scene III, Friar Lawrence tells Romeo that the Prince's sentence is dear mercy; the noun casts exile as life-saving grace, though Romeo rejects that framing.

Item 3

In Scene III, Romeo tells Friar Lawrence that exile is torture, not mercy; the noun gives bodily force to separation from Juliet and counters legal rhetoric.

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Critical Thinking

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