If Mercutio hadn’t had been so macho in his behaviour he probably wouldn’t have died, so Romeo wouldn’t have taken his revenge and killed Tybalt, therefore would never had been banished and would have received the message from friar Laurence. So this is 2 ways in which Mercutio could be to blame for Romeo and Juliet’s death.
Juliet’s nurse could also be to blame for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet.
She has been more than a nurse to Juliet over the years, Juliet feels closer to her than her own mother and the nurse treats Juliet as if she were her own daughter.
She helped Juliet with her relationship with Romeo, helped organise the secret wedding by carrying messages to and from the lovers (‘here a sir, a ring she bid me give you sir:’) and generally encouraged her. So Juliet thought that the nurse was on her side.
In act 3 scene 5 the nurse even tries to stand up for Juliet when she has an argument with her father about the marriage to Paris ‘god in heaven bless her: you are to blame my lord to rate her so’, she said before being shouted at by Capulet.
Because Shakespeare made this relationship between the nurse and Juliet so strong, it would come as a shock to the audience and Juliet when the nurse says, at the end of the scene, ‘I think it best you married with the county’ and ‘Romeo’s a dishclout to him’. This hits Juliet hard, that the one person she trusts and thought understood her most is now telling her the one thing she doesn’t want to hear and has betrayed her.
So this is how the nurse could be to blame for Romeo and Juliet’s death. If nurse hadn’t have betrayed Juliet she wouldn’t have gone to friar Laurence’s cell, distraught, he wouldn’t have given her the poison and the deaths could have been prevented.
Friar Laurence’s part in the play I think is quite significant. He knew about Romeo and Juliet’s relationship, married them in secret and supplied Juliet with the drugs to make her fall asleep.
‘Come with me, and we will make short work. For by your leaves, you shall not stay alone, till holy church incorporate two in one’ he says before marrying the couple after encouraging the relationship, surely knowing that it could only end in trouble. And, when Juliet turns to him in need he gives her the remedy which causes her to go to sleep and Romeo to kill himself.
The deaths could also have been caused by the ‘ancient grudge’ between the opposing families. If the families didn’t have such a hatred for each other then maybe Romeo and Juliet could have confided in their families rather then keep the relationship a secret. When Juliet discovers who Romeo is she doesn’t know what to do. She says ‘So Romeo would were he no Romeo call’d, retain that dear perfection which he owes’, meaning that if he wasn’t a Montague than he could be perfection.
The deaths could have been due to the lovers themselves as they rushed into marriage to early and caused lots of problems. Romeo was too quick to think about getting married, especially as he only just got over Rosaline. When angered, he killed Tybalt out of revenge which led to banishment and also was too quick to think about killing himself without finding out the facts. Juliet was also too quick to think about getting married especially as she was due to get engaged to Paris at the time and she must have known that it couldn’t have worked. Also she didn’t think twice about taking the drugs to make her sleep for a day, not thinking bout the consequences.
Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet as a tragedy but has also been hailed as the greatest love story that ever existed, so could the deaths of the lovers purely be because of their love for one another, along with coincidence and chance?
It could have been coincidence that a clown came along with an invitation to the Capulets ball which Romeo read, that lead to him and Juliet first meeting. And when they first met it was love at first sight. I think that Shakespeare wrote about Romeo’s love for Rosaline in the very beginning of the play so we could see just how different it was with Juliet. ‘Alas that love, whose view is muffled still, should without eyes, see pathways to his will’ is what Romeo says about his love of Rosaline, which makes the audience think that he is very much in love with her but when he meets Juliet his feelings change. ‘With Rosaline, my ghostly father no, I have forgot that name, and that name’s woe’ he says to friar Laurence in act 2 scene 3, showing that he does not love Rosaline anymore. To summarise, Romeo thought he loved Rosaline but as soon as he meets Juliet he forgets all about her, which suggests that the relationship with Rosaline was just a lust and not real love, as it is with Juliet.
Also it could be chance that, after Romeo’s banishment he did not receive the friar’s letter containing Juliet’s status, after the friar had said that he’d get the letter delivered quickly. And in the ending scene Juliet did not awaken merely not much longer than ‘Full half an hour’ before she actually did, as this would have prevented Romeo’s death.
When it comes to the end of Romeo and Juliet’s short lives, Shakespeare makes it clear that they love each other and are willing to do anything to be together with Romeo saying ‘Here’s to my love. O true apothecary: thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.’ And Juliet; ‘O happy dagger. This is thy sheath, there rust and let me die’. The lovers would rather die to be with each other than live and not be together. So it is the purest of love that causes the suicides.
However, in the prologue, it says that ‘a pair of star-cross’d lovers, take their life’ so we automatically know that from the very beginning of the play fate is involved. Throughout the play there are references to fate and the stars through the various characters.
Famously Romeo says ‘Is it e’en so? Then I deny you stars’ after hearing of Juliet’s ‘death’. He wants to ‘deny’ the stars and fate as opposed to ‘defying’ them as he is saying that he wont allow it to happen and is denying fate the power to do anything else bad to him.
It could also be fate that made the friar not get to the tomb in time to save a life and other things like that.
Shakespeare probably wrote about fate in the play because he knew how the audience would respond to it. Around the time that he wrote the play people believed in fate and that the stars ruled their lives and were also superstitious.
To conclude, having looked at all the different aspects of what could have caused Romeo and Juliet’s deaths I think that it was fate, with all the characters contributing.
Shakespeare wrote the play to be a tragedy and that is what he achieved. He used different writing skills like puns, repetition and oxymorons to engage the audience and tell a believable story.
I think that Shakespeare wrote it so that it was fate that caused the deaths. He knew the audience would understand and believe it and took advantage of that. He mentioned fate all through the play and added all the little points and things that went wrong, like the death of Tibet, leading to Romeos banishment and the letter not arriving to Romeo in time because these were things that could happen, it’s not too far fetched and the audience would go along with it
But only Shakespeare knew when he wrote it, who is to blame for the deaths of the lovers Romeo and Juliet, so the world will probably never know and will disagree over the reasons for many years to come.
