"Or if not so, then here I hit it right,
Our Romeo hath not been in bed tonight."
This teasing shows a great friendship between the two, it shows that they can laugh and joke together. This friendship is also shown when Romeo asks the friar to marry him and Juliet. Friar Lawrence does not show any unhappiness or anger, he just teases Romeo again,
"… Young men's love then lies
Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes." (Act 2 sc. 3)
The secret marriage would not be something done for just anyone, Friar Lawrence wants to help Romeo and do what is best for him.
Friar Lawrence must have motives for helping Romeo and Juliet, as it does not benefit him. Being a good friend of Romeo's, he wanted to help and do whatever he could, "I'll thy assistant be" (act 2 sc. 3). Another motive is to try and bring peace between the Montagues and the Capulets. The households had been feuding for years and no one liked it, Friar Lawrence may have thought that if Romeo and Juliet were married it would bind the two families together. They would be forced to treat each other as family,
"For this alliance may so happy prove
To turn your households' rancour to pure love." (Act 2 sc. 3)
Friar Lawrence himself could never get married or be in love because he is a member of the Catholic Church, by helping Romeo to be with person he loves the friar could be trying to give Romeo something that he would never get to experience.
At the end of Act 2 sc. 3 Friar Lawrence agrees to marry Romeo and Juliet, Romeo wants to be quick and get married straight away. However, Friar Lawrence tells him not to be too hasty or he will make mistakes,
Romeo: “O let us hence, I stand on sudden haste.”
Friar Lawrence: “Wisely and slow, they stumble that run fast”
This is like a proverb; it has a deeper meaning than what is written, a moral to the story. In this case, Friar Lawrence is meaning that if Romeo rushes into this marriage it could all go terribly wrong, which of course is what happens. Again the future outcome has been foretold. This shows that he cares about Romeo and Juliet and does not want them making mistakes, he is being cautious while it is Romeo that is plunging ahead and being to fast. This may also have a meaning to Romeo when he kills Tybalt, if he had thought about what killing him would do to his and Juliet's future maybe he would not have been so quick to draw his sword.
In act 3 sc. 3 Romeo is distraught about being banished for killing Tybalt,
"'Banished' is banished from the world,
And world's exile is death; then 'banished'
Is death mistermed." (Act 3 sc. 3)
He hides at Friar Lawrence's cell and the nurse comes. Romeo is in despair and the nurse doesn't know what to do, but Friar Lawrence manages to turn everything around. He convinces Romeo that it could be worse, that Romeo was lucky that he had not been sentenced to death,
"And turned that black word 'death' to 'banishment'.
This is dear mercy, and thou seest it not." (Act 3 sc. 3)
Friar Lawrence tells of his plan to get Romeo and Juliet together for their wedding night despite Romeo's banishment, and this gives Romeo a new hope,
"Ascend to her chamber, hence and comfort her". (Act 3 sc. 3)
This changes the whole future because, without Friar Lawrence's plan Romeo would probably just have left instead of visiting Juliet. The nurse believes his plan is the answer to the problem and does what he says willingly,
"O Lord, I could have stayed here all night
To hear good counsel. O, what learning is!" (Act 3 sc. 3)
This shows that the nurse agrees with the friar and does not see what harm it could cause. The friar has furthered the plot by coming up with a plan and getting the nurse and Romeo to agree with it. However, this night will be the last happy time Juliet and Romeo will share together.
After their wedding night Friar Lawrence has another plan to reunite Romeo and Juliet, but forever this time. In Act 4 sc. 1; he tells Juliet that if she is brave enough he can fake her death,
"Thou hast the strength to slay thyself,
Then it is likely thou wilt undertake
A thing like death to chide away this shame" (Act 4 sc. 1)
In doing this, Friar Lawrence involves himself further with the Capulets. By helping Juliet he is going against their wish for her, to marry Paris. He is preventing Juliet from going through with the marriage and providing an escape for her to go the Capulets' worst enemy. He is purposely causing grief to the Capulets and is then going to comfort them as if he has done nothing. If they were to find out he had done this they would be very angry and could have even tried to banish him, this could be why he tries to hide Juliet away when his idea falls to pieces.
It is at the vault that Friar Lawrence’s plan all goes wrong. Romeo, after learning of his lady’s ‘death’ goes to visit her and kills himself because he cannot bear to go on living without her,
“I will stay with thee,
And never from this palace of dim night
Depart again.” (Act 5 sc. 3)
He drinks the poison. After hearing that Romeo thought Juliet was dead, Friar Lawrence comes to tell him it is not so but he finds Romeo already dead and Juliet just waking up. He tries to bring Juliet out of the vault without her seeing Romeo, but she does and refuses to leave, “for I will not away”. The Watch is coming and if Friar Lawrence were to be caught in the vault he would be accused of witchcraft and would be killed. So he gives his last offer of help and leaves,
“Come, I’ll dispose of thee
Among a sisterhood of holy nuns.
Stay not to question, for the Watch is coming.
Come go, good Juliet, I dare no longer stay.” (Act 5 sc. 3)
Friar Lawrence offers to hide Juliet in a convent where she would be a nun for the rest of her life. Although this could be seen as a kind gesture of help, Juliet would have just been running away from her problems. Friar Lawrence should have encouraged her to face her troubles. Throughout the play, Friar Lawrence had been encouraging Romeo and Juliet to run and hide. Friar Lawrence may also be acting selfishly, he does not want to be caught in the vault, nor does he want to be accused of going against the Capulets by taking their daughter away from them and uniting her with Romeo. So he offers to ‘dispose’ of Juliet as if she is in the way. This idea of Friar Lawrence's was not accepted by Juliet, perhaps she realised that if it were not for him she would not be in this mess.
Without Friar Lawrence’s intervention the story may never have taken place and it certainly would not have been the same. When Romeo had met Juliet and he asked Friar Lawrence to marry them, the friar did not try and stop Romeo at all. He did not point out the commitments, what it could do to their families or, that what they are feeling may not be love. If Friar Lawrence had refused to marry them secretly it is unlikely that anyone else would have either. If they had got married however, the story would very likely to have stopped at the death of Tybalt. Romeo would have been banished, probably left and never returned. Juliet would have had to marry Paris and keep Romeo a secret for the rest of her life. Throughout the whole storyline it is Friar Lawrence that pushes them on or come up with the ideas. So it is not actually Romeo and Juliet thinking up crazy ideas to get them together, it is Friar Lawrence nudging them on. If it were not for him, the whole story would have faded away or never begun at all. He advised Romeo to visit Juliet after Tybalt's death, and he thought of faking Juliet's death. He is to blame for this idea, as he came up with it and offered the potion to Juliet,
"I'll give thee remedy." (Act 4 sc. 1)
So without the intervention of Friar Lawrence the story would be very different, but does that make the tragic deaths his fault?
Although Friar Lawrence may be to blame for giving the couple ideas and plans, he didn't create all the problems. Romeo trusted Friar Lawrence more than anyone and so the friar had the kind of influence over Romeo like a father to his son. Romeo would have taken more notice to what Friar Lawrence said and thought than to anyone else. So a lot of what Romeo did could have been partly to blame on the friar. All the friar was really trying to do though was help them, he never wanted to cause sadness and death, he was just doing what he thought was right. So who else could be to blame? The families were bitter enemies and this made it impossible for Romeo and Juliet to be together under normal circumstances. Maybe the families are to blame, if they had not been fighting Romeo and Juliet would have had more of a chance together, or may have even been paired up as Juliet and Paris were. As did the friar to Romeo, the nurse encourages Juliet to be with Romeo and not with Paris, she does not tell her that it is wrong or that she should tell her parents. So is the nurse could be to blame. However, although she encourages Juliet, she also discourages her after Romeo is banished,
"I think it best you married with the County.
O, he is a lovely gentleman!" (Act 3 sc. 5)
She may have realised that the love between Romeo and Juliet would do more harm than good and it could never work. For her, the bubble broke, but Friar Lawrence kept trying to get Romeo and Juliet together. If he had realised sooner that all their love could lead to was tragedy then, maybe Romeo and Juliet would have just gone their separate ways.
Not everything can be blamed on people though; some of it must be down to fate. Maybe it was just bad luck that Romeo came to the vault when he did, if he had just taken another hour (or less) to get there he would have found Juliet awake instead of asleep. If he had come a bit later they would have been celebrating rather than mourning over each other's deaths, and then Friar Lawrence would have been praised for helping them instead of blamed for their deaths. It could also have been fate that Romeo didn't find out about the plan when he was supposed to, if he had known about it, then he could have just waited for Juliet and again everything would have turned out well for them. Friar Lawrence's idea was ingenious and in theory should have worked, but that would have made the story much less unique!
It seems that Friar Lawrence is not the only one to blame because a number of people's actions led to the deaths of Romeo and Juliet, not just one. However, that is not the way he saw it, he blamed himself for both of their deaths and was a broken man. What he really wanted was for them to be happy together, but it was not to be. In his own way he has failed those who he set out to help, but in my view that does not make him responsible for the failure. There was a good chance that his idea would have worked if it were not for fate. The families' feuding is really to blame, their pointless fights and arguments caused deaths on both sides, and what for?
