Whose fault was it for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet?
The events leading up to the deaths of Romeo and Juliet are as follows:
Friar Lawrence gives Juliet a special potion which will put her to sleep for twenty hours. The plan is for everyone else to think she is dead, while Romeo receives a message from Friar Lawrence outlining this plan. Firstly, the plan goes wrong as Friar Lawrence’s servant cannot deliver the message because of a plague. This leads to a huge misunderstanding, as Balthasar, Romeo’s servant, goes to Verona and sees Juliet lying in the Capulet’s vault and assumes that she is dead. He then tells this to Romeo, who is obviously heartbroken, and travels to Verona to see Juliet again. However, before he does so, Romeo visits a poor apothecary, because by this time Romeo has decided to kill himself and buys some poison from the apothecary. Before Romeo arrives at the tomb, Paris is there laying flowers on her grave. However his page warns him that someone is coming and they both hide. The person of course is Romeo, and as he begins to open the tomb Paris comes out of his hiding place to stop Romeo. Romeo tries to warn Paris that he is desperate, but Paris pays no heed. Then they both draw swords and fight, in which Romeo succeeds in killing Paris. After killing Paris, Romeo walks into the tomb and swears that he will stay with her forever, upon this he takes the poison and dies. When Friar Lawrence comes rushing into the tomb to stop what he thinks is going to happen, Juliet wakes up. When she sees that Romeo is dead, she takes his dagger and kills herself. The whole part of the story leading up to Romeo and Juliet’s deaths’ is summed up by the Prince, when he says that “All are punished”. I agree with this view partially, as I believe it was the fault of Capulet and Montague that Romeo and Juliet died.
