Romeo and Juliet essay

This essay is about who was responsible for the death of Romeo and Juliet

 

        At the end of Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare, the young teens took their lives. Many people could be blamed for this tragedy going as far back as the servant who couldn’t read or as recent as Friar Lawrence leaving them alone. Some may even blame them for killing each other. However the person most responsible for their deaths was Friar Lawrence. Juliet’s nurse also played a part in the deaths of Romeo and Juliet.  They played their parts and allowed themselves to be persuaded by the teens because both Friar Lawrence and the nurse held the belief that if the two married the long-standing feud between the two families would finally end, thus bringing peace to the streets of Verona.

        Friar Lawrence was the main character responsible for their death because he made many decisions without thinking them through. One was giving Juliet the poison. He said: 

Hold, daughter: I do spy a kind of hope,

Which craves as desperate an execution.

As that is desperate which we would prevent.

If, rather than to marry County Paris,

Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,

Then is it likely thou wilt undertake

A thing like death to chide away this shame,

That copest with death himself to scape from it:

And, if thou darest, I'll give thee remedy.

           (Act 4, Scene 1)

 

Friar Lawrence is saying that the only way Juliet could get out of her marriage to Paris and marry Romeo is to drink the poison and pretend she is dead. She is thirteen years old and since it is only the 1500s, there was no guarantee that the poison would only put her into a deep sleep, but perhaps could’ve easily killed her. Friar Lawrence also made an error in not delivering the letter to Romeo personally since it was of such grave importance and had dire consequences as evidenced in Act 5, Scene 2:  

FRIAR LAURENCE 

Who bare my letter, then, to Romeo?

FRIAR JOHN 

I could not send it,--here it is again,--

Nor get a messenger to bring it thee,

So fearful were they of infection.

FRIAR LAURENCE 

Unhappy fortune! by my brotherhood,

The letter was not nice but full of charge

Of dear import, and the neglecting it

May do much danger. Friar John, go hence;

Get me an iron crow, and bring it straight

Unto my cell.

                                (Act 5, Scene 2)

 

Since he trusted someone else to deliver the letter, it didn’t get to Romeo thus resulting in his death. 

        Juliet’s nurse was had a hand in the deaths of Romeo and Juliet.  In Act 2, Scene 5 she gives Juliet the following message from Romeo:

Then hie you hence to Friar Laurence' cell;

There stays a husband to make you a wife:

Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks,

They'll be in scarlet straight at any news.

Hie you to church; I must another way,

To fetch a ladder, by the which your love

Must climb a bird's nest soon when it is dark:

I am the drudge and toil in your delight,

But you shall bear the burden soon at night.

Go; I'll to dinner: hie you to the cell.

           (Act 2, Scene 5)

 

She not only knew everything that was going on but helped them meet in Friar Lawrence’s cell by delivering messages between Romeo and Juliet.          

        Shakespeare was saying that love among the young is not everlasting unless in death.  Romeo was deeply in love with Rosaline in the beginning of the play and died for Juliet by the end of the play.  Shakespeare also makes the point of how hasty young people in love are.  They tend to make decisions based on emotion instead of logic.  This is evident in the play when Romeo kills himself when he sees Juliet and thinks her dead instead of waiting to speak to Friar Lawrence.

        Obviously, many other people had small parts in this tragedy like the parents trying to arrange a marriage for Juliet to the servant who allowed Benvolio to read the invitation to the party which was where Romeo and Juliet first met. However, as is evident from the following excerpt, Friar Lawrence also felt himself very responsible:  

 

Miscarried by my fault, let my old life

Be sacrificed, some hour before his time,

Unto the rigour of severest law.

           (Act 5, scene 3)

 

 

Friar Lawrence is admitting he was wrong and should be punished to the full extend of the law. 

Reviews

[Becca*Type2012]

Nice points. We're reading Romeo and Juilety in English calss and wer were having the same discussion today as to whom's fault it was that Romeo and Juilet died in the end. One of the points was brought up that is was Friar Larwence's fault because of the things you mentioned, but my class came to a consensious that it was everyone's fault (including Romeo and Juilet's) because everything that went wrong could have and everyone have caould have done something wrong did. FATE was the reason that these two young lovers had to die in the end because their families had to stop fighting for the good of Verona. Nice exxay and good points on the resaons that it is Friar Larwence's fault.