Who is to blame for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet?

For many years people have been arguing over the reasons for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. The play is a tragedy, there are many characters that play a role in contributing to the tragic events in the play. It has an intense atmosphere throughout, emotions of love and hate are present. The play takes place over five days and the events take place very quickly, which eventually leads to the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. The deaths are tragic. They are found lying beside each other, dead. Romeo having taken poison because he thinks his Juliet was dead and once Juliet had found he lover dead next to her she too killed herself by the stabbing of a knife. There are many people who can be blamed for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. In this essay I will discuss which characters are to blame and to what extent.

I will first discuss to what extent Romeo is to blame for his and Juliet’s deaths. Romeo plays a major part in the play. Romeo is intense, passionate and impulsive throughout the play and does not think about the consequences of his actions, which leads to his death in which he consumes the poison too fast without thinking. When his dear friend Mercutio is killed, he sets out to kill Tybalt no matter what the consequences of his actions are. He blames fate and misfortune for events that go wrong, for example when he said “O! I am fortune’s fool”. He falls in love quickly and this makes him act hastily and not thinking about the consequences. He looked at Juliet and it is love at first sight, they are in love against their family’s wishes. He learns that Juliet is a Capulet, but he does not stop seeing her, he carries on, not bothered about the consequences to the two families. He says his love is so strong for Juliet that absolutely nothing can keep him from her “with loves light wing did I o’ereperch these walls”. When he asks Juliet to marry him he is risking his life, her life and the upsetting the families. His love for Juliet could have died, instead of thinking about what he is about to do he just goes and buys poison, which adds to the argument that he is not yet wise. He does not take the warnings form the friar “I do beseech you, sir, have patience” and Romeo replies “Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do”, he tells Balthasar to leave him alone and let him do what he pleases. If Romeo would have waited a moment before consuming the poison he would have seen Juliet wake up, but he acts hastily, he does not wait and this consequently resulted in the deaths of both Romeo and Juliet.

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Like Romeo, Juliet can also be blamed. She betrayed her family and goes against their wishes for her to be married to Paris. But unlike Romeo, Juliet changes throughout the play. At first she is loyal and obedient towards her family, and does as she is told. However, when she falls in love with Romeo, she becomes independent, she thinks for herself and defies her parents. “my only love, sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown, and known too late! Prodigious birth of love it is to me that I must love a loathed enemy”, Juliet’s reaction after the nurse tells her that Romeo is a Montague. However she has already fallen in love with him. The information has come too late to save them from this difficult situation. She goes ahead with marrying Romeo even though she knows she is promised to Paris. If her parents were to find out about this secret marriage then they would be devastated. “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet”, Juliet is lamenting the fact that her love is a member of the family that is a bitter enemy of her own. He is not defined by his name, they would be able to express their love freely if he were called another name. She is already engaged to marry Paris and until she found Romeo she had been happy with marrying Paris. She would not tell her parents in the fear of how her father would react, this was because Verona is patriarchal city, which meant that fathers had all power over their daughters, the fathers could choose who their daughters marry and if the daughter did not accept or did not like their choice, the father would be deeply insulted. Juliet is young, a teenager, she will not give up Romeo or marry another, she is weakening and becoming unstable “unless thou tell me how I may prevent it, if in thy wisdom thou canst give no help… with this knife, I’ll help it presently”.

Tybalt may also be blamed for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. He is known to have very violent behaviour and language “Fetch me my rapier boy. What, dares the slave”. He is always looking for a fight and at the party challenges Romeo to a duel. Tybalt encourages anger and rivalry between the two families “Talk of peace? I hate the word”. His prejudice has destroyed him and his punishment for killing Mercutio was to be murdered by Romeo.

Mercutio too plays a part in what happens to Romeo and Juliet. Mercutio is also violent like Tybalt. He makes the situation worse, for example when he encourages Romeo to fight Tybalt “o calm dishonourable, vile submission!” This fight leads to the death of Mercutio himself, which also lead to Romeo being banished from Verona and therefore the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. His last words before he dies are that he blamed the two families for his death “A plague o’ both your houses”.

The prince has a duty too keep peace in the city of Verona. His duty has not been fulfilled. He could have acted early and stopped what was a minor feud that became an unstoppable hate between the two families. Some may argue that if he had not banished Romeo from Verona then the deaths of Romeo and Juliet may not have occurred so tragically. He did warn the two families but he did not do enough “throw your mistemper’d weapons to the ground” and “if you ever disturb our streets again”, therefore if had done more to stop the feud this tragedy may not have occurred.

Friar Laurence, who should have acted in the wishes of the parents not Romeo and Juliet. He advises Romeo to be more cautious and sensible. He is shocked that Romeo wants to marry Juliet so soon after being in love with Rosalind “Holy saint Francis, what a change is here! Is Rosalind, who thou didst love so dear, so soon forsaken” is his reaction after Romeo tells him that he wants to marry Juliet. He is surprised that Romeo has forgotten about Rosalind so quickly, yet he still agrees to marry Romeo and Juliet. He thinks the marriage will bring both families together and stop the feud. Ironically it’s their deaths that bring the families together. He has good intentions but they are also very irresponsible. Both families feud so violently and the marriage of these two young siblings is bound not to have a happy outcome. He has concerns but still goes ahead with the marriage after advising them “these violent delights have violent ends” and “wisely and slow : they stumble that run fast”. He again is very irresponsible by giving young Juliet a drug that will make her sleep and appear as if she were dead “take thou this vial, being then in bed and this distilled liquor drink thou off”. He also lies to Paris and Juliet’s family, this was very unlike a priest. He is trying to help but acts irresponsibly. He is also a coward and he did not admit to his part in the tragedy and runs away at the end when Juliet finds Romeo dead, in fear of being accused of their deaths.

The nurse also contributes to the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. She acts irresponsibly and is always making comments towards the physical parts of the human body and is not interested in the mental part of a person. She is the only person in whom Juliet can confide in and who listens to her, but she acts irresponsibly and encourages Juliet to go against her family’s wishes by helping her communicate and meet up secretly with Romeo. The nurse can be blamed for Juliet’s behaviour before she had went to see Friar Laurence, it was she who encouraged Juliet to see Romeo, secretly. But when the situation starts to get hostile and dangerous she changes her mind and then encourages her to marry Paris. Juliet was getting mixed feelings from the only person who she trusted and this made her love for Romeo grow fonder. The nurse’s behaviour played a major part in the death of Juliet.

The last people that can be blamed for contributing towards the death of the young lovers are Lord and Lady Capulet. They are as much to blame as the Montagues for keeping the feud alight between the two families. They are stubborn and unable to agree or compromise on anything and this may be what drove Romeo and Juliet away from their families and towards each other. Lord Capulet put pressure on young and unstable Juliet to marry Paris, regardless of her feelings about Paris. If lord Capulet had listened to his daughter and not lost his temper so easily then she might have been able to tell her father her problems, instead he threatened her “I tell thee what, get thee to church o’ Thursday or never after look me in the face”, if Juliet had married Paris then she would have to give up Romeo, which was nearly impossible for her seeing as they were both so deeply in love and if she did not wed Paris her father would never forgive her. Lord Capulet angered Juliet and she had only one choice, to betray her father. Lady Capulet was also as stubborn as her husband. When Tybalt is killed she demands vengeance “For blood of ours shed blood of Montague” , and does not even think to take this as an opportunity to relieve tensions between the two families. Lord Capulet is a bullying father and Lady Capulet a cold, unsympathetic and uncaring mother. This attitude is shown by Lord and Lady Capulet in Act 3, scene 5, when they are forcing Juliet to marry Paris. They are so eager for Juliet to marry Paris because Capulet knows it will advance his own wealth, he thinks Juliet is his own property and therefore can treat her how he pleases. But this pushes Juliet away from her family and towards Romeo and death.

Fate, this is not a person, which we can blame, but an idea. It can be said that fate has controlled Romeo and Juliet’s lives from the moment of conception. All the events that took place were because of fate, fate controls what happens in your life and it cannot be changed. Everything that happens in your life is destined to happen and nothing can stop it. In the context of the Elizabethan age, fate played a big part in what happened to a person.

In conclusion Lord and lady Capulet is to blame. This decision I made was based around all the evidence and arguments made. They had the power to stop the feud between the families, but they did not do anything to rectify the matter. This led to deep anger and an unstoppable feud, in which two young and innocent individuals were caught up in. Their young minds did not understand the full extent of the feuds, they took risks that they did not understand fully the outcome, and they couldn’t talk to their parents about the situation because they would’ve known that they would keep them from seeing each other. Their parents had failed (as parents) and did not fulfil the job of loving and caring parents, which led to the horrific tragedy of the two deaths.

By, Kamlesh vadukul (10 set3 English)