Act 4 — Romeo and Juliet — Eduqas GCSE English Literature C720
Eduqas GCSE English Literature · C720
Act 4
The plot, part by part
What you need to know
The Friar's plan and the potion, Juliet's pretended obedience, her soliloquy before drinking it, and the discovery of her 'death'.
Key quotations: 'O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris', 'Take thou this vial', 'What if this mixture do not work at all?', 'Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee', 'Death lies on her like an untimely frost', 'Death is my son-in-law'.
Dramatic irony: the audience knows Juliet is alive while her family mourns, and the wedding preparations turn into a funeral.
Eduqas's Shakespeare questions don't mark context: the extract question (15 marks) and the whole-play essay (20 marks, plus 5 for spelling, punctuation, vocabulary and sentence structures) both mark response and analysis of language, form and structure (AO1 and AO2). Use context only in a phrase that supports an interpretation, and say which question each worked paragraph practises.
