“Talk not to me, for I’ll not speak a word.
Do as thou wilt, for I’ve done with thee.”
He does this because he believes Juliet to be acting ungratefully. He does not know why Juliet is upset, he assumes, wrongly, that it is for the death of her cousin. Juliet doesn’t feel able to tell her father of her marriage to Romeo therefore he tries to do his best based on what he believes to be correct. This was clearly intended as an act of kindness and as a result of Juliet’s reaction Lord Capulet could be forgiven for reacting the way he did but we must then ask why Juliet had such a bad relationship with her father that she didn’t trust him enough to tell him the truth.
Romeo’s parents don’t appear to be much better. They do not attempt to end the feud either. They, like the Capulets don’t appear to know their son very well, for example at the start of the play when Romeo is love sick for Rosaline he will not tell them what is wrong.
Benvolio: “Have you importuned him by any means?”
Montague: “Both myself and many other friends,
But he is his own affections’ counsellor.”
This lack of ability to confide in parents caused both Romeo and Juliet to need another adult to talk to. Juliet confides in Nurse and Romeo in Friar Lawrence.
Nurse was Juliet’s mentor and confidante throughout the play. Not until near the end did Nurse appear to give Juliet advice that directly related to the death of the young lovers. Although she was the one to carry messages back and forth between Juliet and Romeo she did so with the best of intentions. After Capulet orders Juliet to marry Paris, Juliet desperately turns to Nurse for comfort. However the Nurse tells Juliet “I think it best you marry the county.”
The Nurse, as previously mentioned, appeared to know Juliet better than her own mother does. It was the Nurse that brought Juliet up and it was the Nurse that Juliet always turned to for advice. She appeared to love Juliet very much and always tried to do the best for her. I doubt, therefore, that her only concerns when she advised Juliet to marry Paris where selfish fearing for her job etc. I think it is more likely that she truly believed that was the best thing for Juliet to do.
Juliet’s loss of her only confidante is summed up by Juliet’s reply obviously intended to be sarcastic, “Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much.” It is because she is so desperate that she turns to the last person who may have been able to help her – Friar Lawrence.
Friar Lawrence married the lovers in secret, and then devised devious and dangerous plans to stop further trouble and keep his part in the plots from being discovered. He appears to be very ‘cloak and dagger’ with all his plans; each devised to put off letting people know about the marriage.
“…til we find time to blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,
Beg pardon of the Prince, and call thee back...”
Here we see the Friar once again putting off announcing their marriage. Instead he planned to smuggle Romeo into the Capulet mansion then out of Verona to Mantua. This leads me to believe he is rather cowardly, for example at the Capulet monument after Romeo dies he leaves Juliet saying “I dare no longer stay,” after again suggesting another secretive plan, “I’ll dispose of thee among a sisterhood of holy nuns.” If Friar Lawrence had stayed rather than running away to escape the guard, he may have been able to save Juliet even if it was too late to save Romeo’s.
When Juliet is forced to marry Paris by her father, the Friar gave Juliet a potion to smuggle her out of Verona to Mantua, rather than confessing that he had married Romeo and Juliet. Juliet is unsure his intentions are noble, fearing that he may have given her a real poison, “lest in this marriage he should be dishonoured.”
This idea that Juliet may not have completely trusted the Friar leads me to be suspicious of his character also although I doubt his intentions were truly evil. I think that Friar Lawrence was merely cowardly, after marrying the couple because
“This alliance may so happy prove
To turn your households’ rancour to pure love” he lost his nerve and couldn’t face telling the Prince or the two families that he had married Romeo and Juliet without their parents consent.
The events of the play happen almost like a string of dominos with one event leading to another. For example we could say that if Romeo hadn’t been at the party he would not have met Juliet and they wouldn’t have fallen in love, but then if it wasn’t for the feud there wouldn’t have been a problem with them falling in love, and so on. The play is classed as a tragedy. At the start of the play the story is summed up in a sonnet in which Romeo and Juliet are referred to as “a pair of star-crossed lovers” this theme of the stars (fate) controlling the lives of characters is echoed by Romeo in Act 2 “I fear too early yet, for my mind misgives some consequence yet hanging in the stars.” This suggests that they were fated to die and that no matter what the other characters had done (or hadn’t done as the case may be) their deaths could not have been prevented.
