How do Dickens and Shakespeare present their characters as disobedient? For example: Juliet (Romeo and Juliet) and Estella (Great...

Products of their times, both Juliet and Estella are brought up to fulfill a certain destiny. Juliet is to be married eventually to someone who is chosen or approved of by her father. He has chosen Count Paris. Estella is brought up to break men’s hearts. Both reject this path, though Estella follows it for some time.

Juliet, when we first meet her in the play, is not at all thinking of marriage. Her love...

Products of their times, both Juliet and Estella are brought up to fulfill a certain destiny. Juliet is to be married eventually to someone who is chosen or approved of by her father. He has chosen Count Paris. Estella is brought up to break men’s hearts. Both reject this path, though Estella follows it for some time.

Juliet, when we first meet her in the play, is not at all thinking of marriage. Her love is for her family, including her favorite cousin, Tybalt. Yet when she meets Romeo, her love is instantaneous. Her hesitation is the result of the swiftness of Romeo’s courtship and proposal of marriage. She is swept away by his emotion, but the day after her marriage she questions it, since her husband has killed her favorite cousin. Still not knowing of Juliet’s marriage, her father orders her to marry Paris. She knows this is impossible since she is already married. But should she be? She questions this herself, whether she can truly love the killer of her cousin.

Estella begins by following orders to break Pip’s heart. Her cruelty does not deter him, however, and over the years, especially why Pip moves to London, she begins to change her attitude toward Pip. While she rejects him as a lover (being not enough of a gentleman), she refuses to break his heart. As with Juliet, tragedy results, though Estella does not die. She marries a man for his position, is abused, and then released by his death. The ending of the novel gives some hint that she has matured enough to accept Pip’s love and return it, in complete defiance of her upbringing.

Both girls defy their upbringing and love people whom they should not be with, which makes them seem disobedient.