Explore different ways Shakespeare portrays Juliet and her father.

On the whole, the relationship between Juliet and her father can reasonably be described as fraught. This is the inevitable consequence of a gigantic clash between two powerful, headstrong personalities, each determined to get what they want.
Lord Capulet is very much a man of his time and social class. He is lord and master of his own household and reserves the right to determine his children's future. In relation to Juliet, this means that she will marry the drippy, uninspiring Paris. Lord Capulet's under no illusions about any genuine feelings Paris may have for his daughter; the forthcoming nuptials between the unhappy couple will be nothing more than a political arrangement, a diplomatic alliance between two powerful, prominent families.
Juliet, for her part, is equally determined that she won't marry Paris. Why? Because she doesn't love him. Her heart belongs to Romeo and no one else. As one can imagine, this cuts no ice with her father, who, in a particularly notorious outburst, lets fly at Juliet for her stubborn refusal to enter into the marriage he's arranged for her:

Hang thee, young baggage! Disobedient wretch!
I tell thee what: get thee to church o' Thursday,
Or never after look me in the face. (act 3, scene 5)

Lord Capulet is so enraged by his daughter's disobedience that he even feels like slapping her. On the face of it, this would appear to confirm our suspicions that the relationship between Lord Capulet and Juliet is one of control, in which the domestic tyrant of a father demands absolute obedience from his daughter at all times. In such a scenario, natural bonds of loving care don't seem to be much in evidence.

Yet that's not the whole story. For when Capulet is confronted by what he believes—wrongly, as it turns out—to be the death of his daughter, he's genuinely distraught, so much so that he can barely speak:



Death, that hath ta'en her hence to make me wail,
Ties up my tongue and will not let me speak. (act 4, scene 5)

Nevertheless, there's still more than an element of self-pity about Capulet's lamentations. There's no acknowledgement of the part that his insistence on her arranged marriage has played in the unfolding tragedy. Capulet may well be genuinely grief-stricken at his daughter's tragic demise but not so much so that he'll question the rigid social conventions that led to her death, to which he has given such fanatical loyalty over so many years.