Friar Laurence’s relationship with Romeo is good. He is really close to him and he gives him good advice but Romeo doesn’t listen because he is young and rash. We know that he is close to him as it says, ‘my good son’. He tells Romeo to talk plainly and get to the point; ‘be plain, good son and homely in thy drift. Riddling confession finds but riddling shift’
We learn that Friar Laurence believes that there is good and evil in humans and plants as he said, ‘in man as well as herbs, grace and rude will. This shows the play’s theme of contrast.
Friar Laurence is important in the storyline; firstly because he agrees to marry Romeo and Juliet. This builds tension as he does this behind the backs of their families. However the friar means well doing this, ‘in one respect I’ll thy assistant be for this alliance may so happy prove to turn your household’s rancour to pure love. However this a bit ambitious of the friar to do this because the fight has been going on for a long time and it might make things worse. This adds to the tension as the audience don't know what will happen.
Between Act 2 Scene 3 the Friar’s intention is that in marrying Romeo and Juliet he may be able to settle the feud between the Montagues and the Capulets. In Act 2 Scene 6, Romeo and Juliet get married secretly and then in act 3 scene 1, Tybalt challenges Romeo but he doesn’t want to fight because he says he , ‘loves him’ because he is now his step brother. Mercutio fights instead and is killed by Tybalt. Romeo gets angry and then kills Tybalt. Romeo then gets banished by the prince and makes a big scene over it by saying, ‘ha banishment, be merciful say death’. This shows he is not thinking straight and he is impulsive. He says he would rather die that be separated from Juliet.
The Friar acts as a calming influence on Romeo. The two are very close and the Friar always gives him good advice and Romeo looks up to him. Romeo turns to the Friar as he could not tell his father as he would be outraged. The Friar asks Romeo to calm down, ‘be patient for the world is broad and wide’. The Friar tells Romeo to be patient because he has a plan which may resolve Romeo and Juliet's problems.
The Friar’s plan was to send Romeo to Mantua, whilst he tried to resolve the issue. He hoped that he would soon be able to reunite them and their families.
Unfortunately, the theme of fate comes in and the Friar’s plant does not go according to plan. Romeo does not get the Friar’s message about Juliet’s sleeping potion and he hears that Juliet is dead, so he goes to get poison. Romeo is impulsive again and he drinks the poison and kills himself just before Juliet wakes up. Juliet then stabs herself because she can’t live without Romeo.
Whilst the Friar’s plan was risky, I feel that the outcome was Romeo's fault because he was too hasty and impatient. He took an immediate decision to kill himself rather than speaking to the Friar to find out what had gone wrong. The Friar was always thinking of the best for Romeo, he was only trying to help; but some people might say that his plans were too ambitious from the start because he was trying to bring two warring families together whoa have been fighting for a long time.
The Friar was successful in reuniting the families but the price to pay for that was having two innocent lives sacrificed. The Friar was mostly calm but he wasn’t when Romeo tried to kill himself in his cell because it was a sin for Catholics to commit suicide so he would have been horrified at this. In Act 3 Scene 3 he was very angry and argued with Romeo, he also lectured him. Everything happened so quickly; it was the ambitious nature of the Friar’s plan which helped to build up tension and also the presence of fate in the play.
