Mercutio gets angry when Tybalt says to him ‘Mercutio, thou consort'st with Romeo’ and interrupts him as he thinks that Tybalt is trying to insult them both by misunderstanding the word ‘consort’ to mean that Tybalt is saying that they are ‘minstrels’.
Mercutio seems to misunderstand Tybalt on purpose, and when Romeo arrives and Tybalt says ,'Here comes my man,' and thinks that he is trying to insult Romeo by calling him a servant or a friend and answers Tybalt by saying ‘But I'll be hanged, sir, if he wear your livery’. You could say that by deliberately misunderstanding him that Mercutio is trying to provoke Tybalt into fighting him and therefore it is his own fault that he gets killed.
Mercutio continues to have a go at Tybalt, who although is after Romeo and doesn’t understand why Mercutio wants to fight him still draws his sword when Mercutio challenges him. You could argue that because the audience knows that Tybalt has a quick temper as was seen in earlier in the play that it is his fault because he gets angry too easily. However although it was Tybalt who stabbed him because he gets angry with Mercutio there may be other reasons why Mercutio died and at the start he doesn’t want to fight him.
Having just got married to Juliet, Romeo has just come from seeing her in Friar Lawrence's cell and is all loved up and turns up just as Mercutio is trying to start a fight with Tybalt. Shakespeare is making a contrast between the last scene where there was a peaceful and happy atmosphere where and this scene where there is lots of violent words and the atmosphere is tense.
Tybalt starts on Romeo and tells him ‘Romeo, the hate I bear thee can afford
No better term than this,--thou art a villain’ but Romeo doesn’t have a go back at him and makes excuses for Tybalt’s anger by saying ‘Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee
Doth much excuse the appertaining rage’. You could argue that because Romeo is trying to come across as friendly to Tybalt by using this sort of language to him but he is making things worse. Tybalt who is angry about Romeo turning up at the Capulet’s party thinks Romeo is making fun of him and doesn’t understand why Romeo is saying that he loves him, although the audience know it’s because he has just married his cousin Juliet and gets even angrier and says ‘Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries
That thou hast done me; therefore turn and draw’.
Romeo tries to calm him down and says ‘I do protest, I never injured thee,
but love thee better than thou canst devise’ but this just makes both Tybalt and Mercutio even angrier. Mercutio is angry with Romeo because he is being disloyal to the Monatague’s with his ‘dishonourable, vile submission’ and draws his sword and asks Tybalt ‘you rat-catcher, will you walk?’
Tybalt asks Mercutio ‘What wouldst thou have with me?’ as it is Romeo that he is after but after Mercutio challenges him, Tybalt also draws his sword. Romeo tries to calm them down and asks Mercutio ‘Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up’ using the word gentle to point out that Mercutio isn’t a violent person but they still start to fight even when Romeo asks Benvolio to ‘beat down their weapons’.
But Benvolio doesn’t do or say anything and Romeo steps into the fight by holding Mercutio’s arms and Mercutio ends up being stabbed by Tybalt who then runs off with his friends. You could argue that if Romeo hadn’t interfered in the fight then Mercutio wouldn’t have got stabbed but you could also argue that he was trying to break the fight up.
Mercutio seems to blame Romeo for him getting stabbed by saying ‘Why the devil came you between us?’ This makes the audience think that it is Romeo’s fault that Mercutio was stabbed although they also may have some sympathy with Romeo as he was trying to stop them fighting.
Benvolio doesn’t seem to do or say anything else after Romeo arrives on the scene and isn’t involved in the scene again until Mercutio is dying. You could argue that Benvolio could have done more to prevent Mercutio’s death but he isn’t responsible for it.
Although Mercutio is hurt he is still joking and at first says ‘Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch’ but once he realises that he is seriously hurt he gets angry and blames both the Montagues and the Capulets when he says the phrase ‘A plague upon both your houses!’ three times as he is dying.
Throughout the play Mercutio is seen as a bit of a joker who never takes anything seriously. His death is the first time that the audience hears him say something serious when he curses both families. You could argue that it is his own fault that he got killed as he was obviously ready for a fight with Tybalt before he even turned up.
However, the audience will have sympathy with Mercutio as he is a funny character who is always joking and he was trying to protect Romeo from Tybalt.
Romeo blames Tyblat for Mercutio’s death because he says that he died because ‘In my behalf; my reputation stain'd With Tybalt's slander’. However he does not blame himself and is so angry that Tybat has killed his friend that when Tyblat comes back he kills him in revenge.
Fate plays a big part in what happens in Shakespeare’s plays and in this scene you could argue that if Mercutio had listened to Benvolio and gone home then he wouldn’t have died. You could also argue that if Romeo had told everyone that he had just married Juliet then the fight wouldn’t have happened. But it might have happened anyway as Tybalt would be angry that Romeo had married his cousin as he hates the Montagues so much.