There lays the man, slain by Romeo,
That slew thy kinsman, brave Mercutio.”
The prince then evaluates what has happened and comes to the conclusion that Romeo is to be exiled from the city of Verona.
The feud does not surface again until the end of the play. In the tomb, Romeo finds Paris at Juliet’s side and is angered. The two of them then fight, leaving Paris dead at the end of the play. Romeo later regrets this. Romeo is then by his beloveds side and because he can’t live without her he takes the poison and kills himself. The prince at the end evaluates this and says:
“Have lost a brace of kinsmen, all are punished.”
Here he is saying that they have lost a couple of people and not only the families are punished, but everybody else is as well.
Old Capulet is a very important character in this play. He is Juliet’s father as well as the head of the Capulet family. He plays a key role in the play, as he is one of the most powerful people in it.
Although Old Capulet is elderly, he still has a willingness to fight against his enemy. When he sees old Montague coming, he immediately says to Lady Capulet: -
“My sword, I say! Old Montague is come,
And flourishes his blade in spite of me.”
He sees Old Montague and wants to go out and fight him. This tells us that the grudge runs deep in the blood of the two families in every generation. Old Capulet also has a very short temper and had Lady Capulet not stopped him, the tragedy could have begun then. Old Capulet also has a lot of wishes for his daughter, and one of them is for Juliet to get married. At the start of the play he says: -
“Let two summers wither in their pride.
Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.”
Juliet is only in her early teens and Old Capulet doesn’t want to rush her into getting married. He is saying that he won’t make her marry for two more summers. This is an important part in the play. This is said at the start of the play and Old Capulet later changes his mind. Also at the start of the play, he says: -
“My will to her consent is but a part;
And she agreed, within her scope of choice,
Lies my consent and fair according voice.”
This is what Old Capulet tells Paris. Here, he is saying that he won’t force her to marry; she will only marry when she wants to marry. Paris accepts this without comment as he has a lot of respect for Old Capulet. But later on in the play, Old Capulet does something that this decisive in making the play a tragedy.
Soon after a party is held at the Capulet’s mansion. The party is to also have a key role in the play. The party is going well until Tybalt spots Romeo and Benvolio, the Montagues. This outrages Tybalt who goes straight to Old Capulet. This news doesn’t seem to bother Old Capulet but it bothers Tybalt tremendously. He wants to go and sort it out but Old Capulet replies:
“I would not for the wealth of this town,
Here in my house do him disparagement.”
He is telling Tybalt that he will not let trouble occur within his household. Then Tybalt argues the point with Old Capulet telling him he can’t stand the sight of the Montague's. Old Capulet then tells him: -
“You’ll not endure him? God shall mend my soul,
You’ll make a mutiny among my guests!”
Tybalt is insisting he sorts it out but Old Capulet is defiant saying that he won’t have trouble caused in his household. This is an important part in the play because had Tybalt been allowed to kick Romeo and Benvolio out then, he might not have gone looking for them after the party and the chain of events that followed might have been prevented. But, as we know, Tybalt went looking for Romeo after the party and found him.
After the death of Tybalt, Juliet seems to be constantly crying, mourning the death of her cousin. So Old Capulet goes against his promise and tells Paris:
“A’ Thursday let it be – a’ Thursday tell her,
She shall be married to this noble earl.”
He tells Paris that he can marry Juliet on Thursday, leaving her unaware of this. Old Capulet sees Juliet crying so he thinks that, to make her happy again, he arranges a marriage for her. Unknown to everybody, Juliet is crying because of Romeo being exiled. She is already married as well which would be a bigger shock to everybody had they found out. But old Capulet doesn’t know this and thinks that if Juliet gets married, it will return some of the happiness she is missing.
When Juliet finds out about her fathers plans, she is expectedly unhappy about his plans. The only person she loves is Romeo and as we know, she is already married to him. She then tells her mother that she doesn’t want to marry Paris and when Old Capulet hears about this, he erupts. He tells Juliet: -
“And you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets,
For by my soul, I’ll ne’er acknowledge thee.”
He is telling her that if she doesn’t marry Paris then basically he will disown her, kick her out of his house. This is when she knows she either has to marry Paris and forget Romeo or do something drastic, something to get her out of the marriage.
She does do something drastic as we know and takes the sleeping drug that deceives everybody, even Romeo. Romeo then visits the tomb, thinking she is dead and kills Paris when he sees him at her side. Then he drinks the poison and poor Juliet wakes up to find Romeo and Paris dead next to her, and all alone. So she kills herself. This distraught old Capulet, as he thought what he was doing was for the good of his child. At the end of the play he says: -
“O child, O child! My soul, and not my child!
Dead art thou. Alack, my child is dead
And with my child my joys are buried.”
He is saying that all his joys and his life were evolved around his daughter and now she is dead, all his joys and his life is dead along with her.
The Nurse plays an important part in the tragedy as she plays a number of key roles to Juliet.
The Nurse is very fond of Juliet. She is the nurse of Juliet but also like a mother to Juliet. The Nurse had been with the Capulets for years and years, and was with the family when Juliet was born. She is very fond of Juliet and thinks of Juliet as her own. We know this by the quote: -
“Susan and she – God rest all Christian souls!
Were of an age,
Thou wast the prettiest babe that e’er I nursed.”
Also in this quote, the Nurse talks about Susan. Susan was the nurse’s own daughter and was born around the same time as Juliet. Unfortunately, Susan died at a young age. From there on, the Nurse spent a lot of time with Juliet, seeming to transfer all her love and affection she felt for Susan to Juliet. Juliet responds to this by treating the nurse as a mother. The Nurse sees a lot of resemblance in Juliet from Susan and finds Juliet very beautiful. This is also said in the quote above. The Nurse also wishes to see Juliet get married at the start of the play. She says: -
“And I might live to see thee married once,
I have my wish.”
Them two sentences tell us how much she wishes to see Juliet get married. Juliet is the daughter of a big and important family and then Nurse also thinks of Juliet as her own.
After the party, where Romeo and Juliet meet, they decide they want to marry. Because Romeo is a Montague, Juliet knows she would not be allowed to marry him, or she would but without her families well wishes. So knowing she can’t turn to her family, she confides in the Nurse. This shows us how important the nurse is in Juliet’s life. The nurse agrees to the proposal of the Romeo and Juliet marriage and acts as a messenger for the couple. She is a conspirator to the marriage. She agrees to act as a messenger for the marriage because she didn’t want to see Juliet hurt and wanted her to be happy. The Nurse knows Juliet has fallen in love with Romeo, even though Romeo is a Montague, so she is more than happy to help.
Her wish comes true as Juliet and Romeo tie the knot but her views on the marriage soon change. The fight between Romeo and Tybalt, where Tybalt is killed, changes her views. The Nurse turns against Romeo and asks Juliet:
“Will you speak well of him who killed your cousin?”
Here she is asking Juliet what she thinks of her “love,” Romeo, after he had killed her cousin, Tybalt. The Nurse who played an integral part in the marriage has changed her views dramatically and is now against Romeo. She has realised what a bad thing the both of them had done. Then Old Capulet puts forward the idea of Juliet marrying Paris. He sees her crying all the time and thinks that she is sad over the death of Tybalt. But secretly she is crying over Romeo and his exile. The nurse warms to the idea and advises her to go along with the marriage. She says: -
“I think it is best you married with the county.”
When the Nurse says this, she is talking out of fear. She is scared for herself and Juliet. She knows that if Old Capulet finds out about the marriage of his daughter Juliet, to a Montague, he would be disgusted and probably kick them both out. But Juliet feels let down by the nurse when she says this. She feels as if she has no one to talk to and she can’t even talk to her mother. After Juliet tells the Nurse she won’t be marrying Paris, Old Capulet comes in. He shouts at Juliet and tells her if she does not marry Paris, then he will disown her. He continues shouting at Juliet and the nurse tries to intervene. She says: -
“You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.”
In this she is trying to calm Old Capulet down but he won’t have any of it. He then bellows abuse at her. The Nurse tries her best to protect Juliet but receives a lot of abuse from the head of the house. When Old Capulet leaves the room, the nurse talks to Juliet and after a while, Juliet concedes: -
“Marry, I will, and this is wisely done.”
The Nurse is ecstatic at this news but unknown to her Juliet is being sarcastic. She is pretending that she is going to marry Paris but deep down she is planning how to get out of the marriage. Juliet is still feeling hurt and let down by the nurse.
I think that the Nurse was an important character in the tragedy. Maybe she could have gone to Old Capulet but she chose to keep quiet about the marriage of Romeo and Juliet. If the Nurse would have told Old Capulet about the marriage, then maybe the tragedy could have been prevented, we will never know.
Friar Lawrence is another important character in the play and has a major impact on the outcome of this play. The Friar is a religious leader of which many people respect. He also has the power to perform marriages and funerals, which is crucial in why this play is a tragedy.
After Romeo and Juliet meet at the party, Romeo goes to the friar and asks him to marry him self and Juliet. At first Friar Lawrence is surprised and believes Romeo to be fickle. What we don’t know is that Romeo had said he was in love before with a girl called Rosaline. He had moped around after her when they had finished. The Friar says to Romeo: -
“Holy Saint Francis, what a change is here,
Is Rosaline that thou didst love so dear,
So soon forsaken? Young men’s love then lies
Not truly in their hearts but in their eyes.”
The friar is saying that Romeo does not love Juliet, he lusts for her. Romeo then convinces him that his love is of a different quality than before. The friar then changes his mind and agrees to marry the two lovers. He says: -
“For this alliance, may so happy prove,
To turn your households rancour to pure love.”
The friar thinks that this will change the hate of the Couplets and Montague’s to ‘love’ as he puts it. This of course does not happen as the marriage is kept a secret. This is the start of events that make this play a tragedy. Friar Lawrence marries the couple soon after, but has a word of warning for both of them. He says: -
“These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die like fire and powder.”
He is saying that the passionate love between them will have a violent outcome. He is warning them.
Soon after the two of them are married by Friar Lawrence. Also soon after, the fight between Mercutio and Tybalt happens which eventually leads to Romeo killing Tybalt. Romeo is then banished and seeks advice from Friar Lawrence. The friar tells him to head to Mantua where if there is any news he will be able to contact him. So Romeo then flees to Mantua on the basis that if there is any news he will be informed by the friar.
When Juliet is told about her having to marry Paris, she runs to the friar fir help. Juliet thinks that with Romeo gone, she is all alone and thinks that now the Nurse has ‘abandoned her’, the Friar is the only person she can run to. The friar thinks of what he can do and eventually comes up with the idea of Juliet taking a drug. This drug is a sleeping drug and lasts for twenty-four hours. She would seem dead to everybody but after twenty – four hours she would awake, as if out of a long sleep. She agrees and the Friar sets it up. The Friar also promises that he will send a letter to Romeo in Mantua explaining the situation.
Later on when Juliet is in the Capulet vault ‘sleeping’, the friar finds out that the letter he trusted with friar John has not been delivered to Romeo. He sees trouble. He is distraught. He rushes to the tomb hoping that he is not too late to tell Romeo about the plan. But when he arrives he sees both Paris and Romeo dead. Instead of keeping his head and entering the tomb to be they’re for Juliet when she wakes up but he runs.
Juliet is just waking up from the sleeping drug so having someone there to comfort her would have been very useful, but the friar heard sirens in the distance and didn’t want to be suspected for the deaths of Romeo and Paris. So he makes a run for it. As we know, Juliet later wakes up all alone and eventually kills herself.
At the end of the play, the Friar says: -
“And here I stand both to impeach and purge,
Myslef condemned and myself excused.”
He is saying that he feels partly guilty for what has happened and thinks that some of the blame has to be aimed at him. But in these sentences he also says that others are to blame for this tragedy and not him. He is trying to make excuses.
I think that Friar Lawrence did play a key role in the tragedy. I think that although he thought what he was doing was for the best, it wasn’t. I also think that it was mainly his judgement at fault in this play. Also his bad judgements for some key scenes were partly to blame. For example the decision to marry Romeo and Juliet was a bad judgement. He knows that their families completely despise each other and they are continually fighting but he still decides to marry the couple. He also came up with the idea of Juliet taking the sleeping drug and that was one of the main scenes in the play. This is why I think that Friar Lawrence played a key role in the tragedy.
Fate and destiny is a funny thing. Many people think that fate plays a hand in your life. Fate and destiny certainly plays a big part in Romeo and Juliet. Fate and destiny first comes up in the prologue and carries on throughout the play.
The idea of being ill fated or doomed is presented in the prologue. The prologue talks about the history of the families and the feud. The line is: -
“A pair of star – crossed lovers take their life;”
This is saying that the path of the two lovers, Romeo and Juliet, has already been decided and will end in them taking their own life. This is where fate and destiny is first brought up in the play.
Fate seems to play a big part in Juliet’s thoughts. She throughout the play often talked about fate and destiny. After the party where Romeo and Juliet meet and fall in love, she knows that what they are doing is wrong but it is too late to do anything about it. She says: -
“My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!”
Here she says that her feelings for Romeo have already gone too far. She thinks that destiny will take them down a certain path, and their paths have already been decided. They can’t change them. But before the party, she had a bad feeling about what was going to happen that night, she said: -
“I fear too early, for my mind misgrieves,
Some consequence yet hanging in the stars,
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date.”
She says that something bad is in the stars, and is fearful of what might happen at the party.
There is a big build up of bad luck shortly after Romeo marries Juliet. The bad luck starts when Tybalt finds Romeo and catches up with him. Romeo is with Mercutio and Benvolio and Tybalt is with two Capulets. Another bit of bad luck is that Romeo had just married Tybalt’s cousin, Juliet. If he hadn’t then maybe Mercutio death could have been prevented. But it wasn’t to be and fate got it’s own way. Also if Mercutio death could had been prevented, then Romeo may not have killed Tybalt and been exiled from Verona.
After the death of Tybalt, Romeo comes to see Juliet. He knows he must leave Verona so he comes to see her for the last tome. As he is about to leave, Juliet says: -
“O God, I have an ill-divining soul!
Methinks I see thee now, thou art so low,
As one dead in the bottom of the tomb.
Either my eyesight fails, or thou look’st pale.”
Here she is saying that she can see something bad happening in the future, it is as if she can feel it. Then a couple of sentences later she comes out with:
“Oh Fortune, Fortune, all men call thee fickle.”
It is like Juliet is speaking directly to fate as if it is a real person. She is asking for fate to ‘make our luck change’ as all Romeo and her seem to have is bad luck. It is as if fate is against the couples love for each other. Just as Romeo has gone, fate deals another bad hand to Juliet, as her mother and father demand her to marry Paris. She then runs to Friar Lawrence.
As she is approaching Friar Lawrence’s cell, she meets Paris. Paris says that he looks forward to their marriage and she replies with: -
“What must be, shall be.”
Juliet says this as if she has a feeling of resignation about what is going to happen, as if she is battling against all odds. Paris thinks nothing of this and doesn’t know what Juliet is planning on doing. Soon after, all is planned. Juliet will take the drink that ‘kills you for twenty – four hours’ and Friar John will deliver a letter to Romeo explaining what is happening. This is where fate plays another big hand in the tragedy.
Friar John’s letters are not delivered and that is certainly planned by fate. Then unfortunately, Balthazar sees Juliet being taken to the Capulet vault, there place of rest. When he sees this he rushes back to Romeo to tell him the news of Juliet’s death. And another piece of fate is that neither Friar Lawrence nor Friar John spot Balthazar so both of them are unsuspecting that Romeo will find out about the death proposal.
Towards the end of the play, a series of bad things happen which are instigated by fate, at the tomb of Juliet. Firstly, Romeo dashes in to be surprised that Paris is there. They argue over whom loved Juliet and Romeo ends up killing Paris in a rage, although he feels very guilty about this. Then Romeo sits at the side of Juliet, gives her a last kiss and then drinks the poison, which kills him near enough instantly. Then to make things worse, Friar Lawrence walks in on the massacre and instead of waiting to explain to Juliet where she is, he hears sirens and makes a run for it. Then lastly, poor Juliet wakes up to find Romeo and Paris dead at the side of her and nobody else about. She is so sad that Romeo is dead she takes her own life as well.
Fate certainly played a big part in the outcome of this play and helped to make it a tragedy. Fate and destiny never gave any support to the love of Romeo and Juliet. Fate and Destiny was certainly an important factor in the tragedy.
I think that Romeo and Juliet becomes a tragedy when the characters in the play, other than Romeo and Juliet, start to become actively involved in the love of the young couple. Many of the key characters, in particular the Friar, try to take over and end up causing more trouble than good.
It seemed to me that the lovers were, beyond doubt, doomed from the start of the play. Everything they did in the play seemed to lead to another and it escalated, as into a snowball rolling down a hill. The two of them unquestionably had a sense of catastrophe hanging over them from, the start of the play. The two of them were undoubtedly in love but we were given the impression that their love was never going to flourish.
I think that fate was against the young couple from start to finish. We knew this from when we read the prologue because of the words “A pair of star – crossed lovers take their life.” I also got the feeling that the play was going to end in catastrophe. Everything they did, was that of two young and immature people. They involved so many people in their love that you could see it never was going to be a ‘happy ever after’ story.
I think that the Friar made a few mistakes in the play, which resulted in him feeling very guilty. It was not his character at fault, or his heart, but it was his judgement. He throughout the play made bad judgement and as a result of this, he played with the lives of the two lovers.
The Nurse, I think, did try to protect herself at Juliet’s expense. At the start, she enjoys playing the ‘mothering’ role to Juliet. She also enjoys the power of ‘matchmaking’ she plays when arranging the marriage of Romeo and Juliet. But she soon changes sides when Juliet has to face the wrath of Old Capulet. This showed us how weak she really is as a person, and as a friend to Juliet.
The families’ quarrel was a major factor in the love of Romeo and Juliet. The two of them were forbidden to date the most hated rivals. But the two of them were both immature and see each other as their only loves. This also adds to the downfall of the couple.
At the end of the play we are left with the feeli9ng of sadness as the lovers’ end up dead in each other’s arms. We wonder if there is a purpose to all this unhappiness? We are on the side of the two lovers at the end of the play. They are seen as the victims as they both end up dead.