Secondly, there are many other characters that are connected with this tragedy. One of them is Friar Lawrence. He was supposed to protect Romeo and Juliet so that he should have been with Juliet after her funeral to get her ready for going to Mantua. Although he is a religious person and knows that ‘young men’s love then lies not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes’, he tries to use Romeo and Juliet to reconcile the two houses by letting them marry. He also knew that ‘these violent delights have violent ends, and in their triumph die like fire and powder’, but he just told them to ‘love moderately’. His age and responsibility should make him look after them as his children instead of using them. He is surely wrong and going against what marriage should be. He might have been well motivated, but he should have appreciated that it could be really dangerous to them. Because he is supposed to be a holy man, this makes his behaviour even worse.
Mercutio could be the one who is blamed for the death of Romeo and Juliet because he took Romeo to the party at first, and also he is the one who fought with Tybalt. Tybalt was aggressive but not really to Mercutio as Tybalt wanted to fight with Romeo and he even speaks politely to Mercutio and Benvolio in Act 3 Scene 1, telling them ‘Gentlemen, good den’. However, as Romeo refused to fight with Tybalt, Tybalt got angrier. Mercutio made the fight and died, which made Romeo feel he had to take revenge. Mercutio can be seen to be acting out of love and respect for Romeo, and desire to protect his good name, but we could also say he is just bloodthirsty, as he tries to create a fight with Tybalt even before Romeo has come along and refused to fight. Also Mercutio can be seen to have invoked the bad luck or curse as he said ‘a plague a both your houses.’
I could also blame Juliet’s parents for their tragic deaths because they put her under pressure to marry Paris even though they know that she is not very happy about it. When Juliet refused the marriage of Paris, Lord Capulet just told her off and persuaded her to marry even though she didn’t love him. They thought that she was upset only because Tybalt had died, and knew nothing about Romeo. However, they are her real parents, so they should have talked to her and asked her why she was so upset, and in doing so they could have understood the marriage between Juliet and Romeo and tried to reconcile with the Montagues. Lord Capulet is particularly cruel as he threatens Juliet and makes her feel she has no choice but to take poisons and pretend to be dead. Even though Elizabethan people expected that parents should decide on marriages for their children, they did not have to behave so cruelly.
The nurse is also involved in this accident. She firstly told Juliet to marry Romeo and encouraged the unwise marriage. She is the mother figure to some extent towards Juliet, but she fails to protect her. Also she encouraged her to lie to her parents and had Juliet’s parents known about her marriage to Romeo they surely wouldn’t have forced her to marry Paris. Although she knows that Juliet is married, she still encourages her to marry Paris and commit bigamy when Romeo has been banished. This is illegal and immoral, she is asking her to commit a terrible sin. Alternatively, I could say the nurse was just obeying the Capulets and protecting her job or protecting Juliet from getting into serious trouble with her angry and potentially violent father.
The Prince was the one who actually exiled Romeo, so he could be blamed. However, I cannot blame him in a way because it was his job to punish Romeo. Also he gave him a banishment which is lighter than death. The Prince is ultimately responsible for everything in a way because arguably he was too soft on the two families. If he had settled the two houses before, the marriage between Romeo and Juliet might have been a happy marriage and this tragic death might not have happened.
The apothecary is also one of the people we could blame. He sold the poison to Romeo, although initially he didn’t want to sell it because he knew that ‘Mantua’s law is death to any he that utters them’. However, poverty makes him agree to sell it for ‘40 ducats’. It shows that he was in a terrible state and starving to death as he showed by his reaction to the words of Romeo which is ‘The world is not thy friend, nor the world’s law, the world affords no law to make thee rich.’ It could be seen as society’s fault that he is poor. As Romeo pointed out: ‘Gold, worse poison to men’s souls’, ultimately we could say capitalism caused the failure to protect the poor.
I could blame Rosaline considering whether Romeo truly loved Juliet or not. Perhaps Romeo was in lust and on the rebound, and had Juliet because it was easy to get her and not really loving her from bottom of his heart. Romeo may have felt inadequate and a failure because Rosaline has refused him. In order to make himself feel better, he might have been desperate to get any girl. Juliet herself felt that she had been too easy and ‘too quickly won’. But rather than this being Rosaline’s fault, I could argue that this is Romeo’s fault. Perhaps he was trying to convince himself too much that he is in love with Juliet.
Paris is certainly not to blame for this, he doesn’t intend to do harm as he didn’t realise Juliet was already married to Romeo. Arguably, he also loved Juliet very much and really wanted to marry her as he cried over her grave and said ‘if thou be merciful, open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.’ when he was killed. He could be a victim of fate too. No one ever tells him the truth.
Finally, fate, chance and coincidence are involved in these tragic deaths. If the messenger could have given the letter to Romeo, neither would have had need to commit suicide. It is fate that there was ‘infectious pestilence’ in the town where ‘barefoot brother’ lives. If Friar John hadn’t had to stay, he could have gone and given the letter to Romeo. It was just a bad luck.
Romeo had the feeling of danger before he went to the party; saying that his ‘mind misgives. Some consequence yet hanging in the stars shall bitterly begin his fearful date with this night’s revels’. However, he didn’t actually try to fight with fate and he said ‘he that hath the steerage of my course Direct my sail!’ and accepted the feeling that the ‘untimely death’ was near to him. If he hadn’t listened to Mercutio, and decided not to go to the party, he wouldn’t have met Juliet of course, so this tragic death wouldn’t have happened. Also when they marry, Romeo said that ‘love-devouring Death what he dare, it is enough I may but call her mine.’ This, his thought, might have turned into reality. Before he has heard that Juliet was dead, he had a bad feeling about Juliet again as he said ‘I dreamt my lady found me dead.’ Before he killed himself by the poison, he mentioned the luck again. He said that ‘shake the yoke of inauspicious stars from this world-wearied flesh’, which shows that he still feels it is the responsibility of destiny or fortune as if he had already known that they were going to die.
On the other hand, Juliet also predicted their death. When she sees Romeo off from her window, she has an ‘ill-divining soul’ which divines their death. She knew that ‘as one dead in the bottom of a tomb, either my eyesight fails, or thou look’st pale.’ In this way, she predicts Romeo’s death long before it happens.
Arguably, Romeo and Juliet both believed in fate too much. This might have let this tragedy happen to them. However, I could also say that bad luck is not made by any feeling and it is just – if we believe that we do have a fixed destiny, as many did in Elizabethan times, there is little point in trying to prevent things from happening – they will anyways.
I think Romeo and Juliet are largely responsible for their own deaths because they fall in love with each other in such a short time, and decide to get married without their parents’ permission. In spite of their young age, they tried to do risky things such as being in the enemy’s house, marrying, or having unknown poison. However, the other characters are also responsible for their death because they made some mistakes towards them or confused them. If nobody confused them, they could have lived happily somehow. Fate and destiny are clearly has involved in this tragic death partly, especially shown by their feelings and the unsent urgent message. In conclusion, all of these are involved with this accident, and this combination caused these tragic deaths.
