The nest plan that the Friar has to offer is seen even later in the play in Act 4 Scene 1. This scene comes after Romeo has gone to see Juliet before he goes to Mantua and after Juliet has found out she is to marry Paris tomorrow. Juliet is in a fragile state not knowing what to do, she has come to the Friar as the Nurse has left her and her entire family is threatening to banish her from the family if she refuses to marry Paris. She has come to the Friar and is surprised to see Paris talking to the Friar. Paris then tries to win Juliet over by saying that the reason that she does not like him is that she is still sad from the death of Tybalt, it is reasonable to suspect that Paris knows that she does not love him and the only reason that she would ever go ahead with the wedding is because her father pressured into it. After Paris has left Juliet is very worried, her actions are like Romeos when he had the news that he had been banished from Verona. She is pleading with the Friar to do something and threatens to kill herself. The Friar then pleads with her not to do it as he sees “a kind of hope…”, which if she is desperate enough to kill herself then she will be desperate enough to attempt this plan: “Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,
Then it is likely thou wilt undertake
A thing like death to chide away this shame,
That cop’st with death himself to scrape from it;
And, if thou darest, I’ll give thee remedy.”
This “remedy” that the Friar speaks of is his riskiest plan yet.
The plan is for Juliet to go home and tell her parents that she does want to marry Paris then when she is alone in her room she must drink a special “liquor” that will make her look dead with “No warmth, No breath”. She will stay like this for forty-two hours and when that is over she will “…awake as if from a pleasant sleep”. So on the morning of the wedding when Paris comes in to check on her she will be look as if she is dead and like all dead Capulets she with be placed in the vault. The Friar will send letters quickly to Romeo telling him of what has happened so he can come to the vault with the Friar, and then when Juliet awakens Romeo shall take her to Mantua where they will live happily ever after and “…free from this present shame”
This plan is extremely far-fetched but desperate times require desperate measures. We also now understand why the knowledge of plants that the Friar has is so important. However there are many things that could go wrong at every stage of the plan although the drug not working is the most likely. When Juliet takes the drug the Nurse or her mother may walk in they might think that she was killing herself because of the memory of Tybalt. They then might try to convince her that this is not the right way to go, Also the drug might not work, wake Juliet too early, wake her up too late or even kill her. When Paris comes to wake her, he might think it is too suspicious that she was talking to the Friar who had a great knowledge plants the day before. How do they know that Juliet won’t be cremated or the letter may be delayed, Romeo or the Friar may be delayed and her family may try to bring her back from whoever stole her dead body. All these problems do not seem to affect the Friar who is thinking as much about himself as he is thinking about Juliet. He is thinking of what a mess he has made of this great plan he had to join the two families. It is this plan that really makes him responsible for the tragedy at the end of the play; this is because he is scared of the consequences of what might happen to him if he tells the truth.
Another major reason why Friar Lawrence is to blame for the death of Juliet at the end of the play is that at the critical point when Juliet wakes up from her deep sleep to find that her beloved husband is lying next to her dead, Friar Lawrence abandons her as he is to concerned with his own well being. When Juliet wakes up half an hour after Romeo has killed himself Juliet. The Friar tells Juliet to go as fate has interfered with their plans:
“A greater power than we can contradict
Hath thwarted our intents.”
He then abandons her as he does not want to be questioned by the watch who are arriving at the moment:
“Stay not to question…I dare no longer stay.”
This final mistake by the Friar really condemns Juliet to death. Although by this time Romeo could not be saved it was very possible that Juliet could be saved. In his final conversation with Juliet he is in a rush to get out of the vault and avoid any trouble and is so impatient that he does not bother to try and convince Juliet that saving herself is the best option rather than ending her own life.
Although the Friar makes a lot of mistakes in this play that could have led to the tragic ends of the play, there are also many events during the play that the Friar cannot be held responsible for. Other characters also contributed to the tragedy to a greater or lesser degree.
Romeo is a character that is slightly to blame for the tragedy. When we first meet him at the beginning of the play he is infatuated with Rosaline but when he goes to the masked ball he falls in love with Juliet and quickly forgets Rosaline. Within one hour of knowing he is already asking Juliet to marry him:
“Th’ exchange of love’s faithful vow for mine”
Romeo is in such a rush to get married to Juliet that he does not think of the consequences. Even when Juliet raises an objection that the marriage is “too rash, too unadvised, too sudden…” Romeo does not listen he only complains that she is leaving him “unsatisfied” and Juliet does not raise another objection. Romeo is in a whirlwind of love throughout the entire play fuelled by his feelings for Juliet.
As well as persuading Juliet to go through with the marriage so quickly, Romeo also persuades the Friar to marry him and Juliet together in secret. The Friar raises a small objection that Romeo has changed love so quickly that the love cannot be real but again fake like the love he had for Rosaline:
“Is Rosaline that thou didst love so dear
So soon forsaken? Young men’s love lies
Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.”
Romeo brushes away the advice from the wise Friar saying that the Friar had told him off for loving Rosaline.
Romeo also killed Tybalt after Tybalt had killed Mercutio (who is Romeos best friend):
“Romeo away, be gone!
The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain.”
This violent outrage of Romeos is typical of Romeo. He is under a lot of emotional pressure because of the wedding. The fact that Tybalt killed Mercutio just tipped Romeo over the safe limit of emotions and the way he released it was Tybalts doom. This is a cause of the tragedy at the end of the play because if Romeo had controlled his emotions and not killed Tybalt then the Prince would not have banished him and there would have been no need for the third plan of the Friar’s that led to the deaths of Romeo and Juliet at the end of the play.
Another example of Romeos impatientness getting the better of him is when he receives the news from Balthazar that Juliet is dead:
“Her body sleeps in Capel’s monument,
And her immortal part with angels lives…”
When Romeo hears this news he acts very quickly and decisively, he asks for paper, ink and some horses to take to Verona that night. He does not stop when Balthazar suggests that they should and if any news comes from the Friar, but this is Romeo in one of his mood swings and nothing could change his mind. This is a new type of Romeo that has not been seen yet, he acts with conviction and he knows what he wants to do. However it has the same faults as the last Romeo: rushing into things without looking at the consequences, not listening to advice from other people and not looking at the entire picture. He then pays a visit to the apothecary and bullies the poor beggar to give him “A dram a poison, such soon-speeding gear/ As will disperse itself through all the veins”. This rushing into doing something this major is similar to the rush into the marriage, and you get the feeling that it is going to fail just like the marriage did.
Romeo is also completely responsible for the death of Paris at the end of the play as Paris goes in almost the exact same way to Tybalt: in a violent emotional outburst of rage.
Juliet is also slightly to blame for her and Romeos death at the end of the play. When Romeo talks of marrying her, she raises an objection of common sense but is not strong enough to follow it up while Romeo is in such a rush.
She is very single-minded and after the marriage has been arranged she is so excited that she only sees the marriage in her head not the dangers that surround it, such how she is going to tell her parents who are set on her marrying Paris.
She passes of many chances to tell her parents of her secret marriage to Romeo. It is here you can really see her single-mindedness that lets her see only the terrible argument that she is very likely to have with her parents and not the solution that was to risk the banishment from her family to be with Romeo in Mantua.
She is also very keen to take the poison offered to her as some means of escaping the horrors that was her life at that moment:
“Give, give me! O tell me not of fear.”
She takes the potion without seeing the amount of things that could go wrong with the plan. So you see that it is Juliet’s single-mindedness was a major part of the tragedy at the end of the play.
Prince Escalus is another person who is slightly to blame for the deaths. It is his banishment of Romeo that starts the ridiculous plan to rejoin Romeo and Juliet in Mantua. Whereas if he had done what he threatened to do at the beginning of the play then there would not have been any plan either as there would be no Romeo to rejoin Juliet with. However Juliet probably would of killed herself anyway. If the Prince had really wanted to stop the deaths at the end of the play it would have been better to not punish anyone or punish the heads of the houses.
The Capulets have a major part in pushing Juliet over the edge. It is Lady Capulet and her husband who arrange the marriage with Paris and it is Capulet himself who threatens Juliet with expulsion from his house:
“Or never after look me in the face.
Speak not, reply not, do not answer me.”
This threat by Capulet forced Juliet to choose between her family and Romeo. She would like to stay with both but she is so emotional that she does not see how she can be with both. These confusing thoughts lead Juliet to believe that the only way out of this is to seek help from the Friar, as the Nurse has abandoned her. She then goes to the Friar and it is the Friar who stops Juliet killing herself in hope of one plan which is very risky but if it works then everything would be alright.
Tybalt is probably, after the Friar the most to blame for the tragic ending of this play. This is because in the scenes where the Friar was not putting fuel on the fire then it was Tybalt who was laying it on. In many scenes Tybalt is provoking fights between the Montagues and the Capulets. His hatred for the Montagues is summed up in this phrase:
“As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee.”
His biggest part in the tragic ending is that he died at the hand of Romeo but it is what he did before that, which makes his death important.
After the banquet scene where Tybalt sees Romeo although he is disguised. He then tries to rid the banquet of Romeo but his uncle, Capulet holds him back saying that Romeo is causing no trouble and that “Verona brags of him/ To be a virtuous and well-governed youth”. Tybalt does not see where this praise has come from and must think that Old Capulet is going mad. Later on in the play after Romeo has just married Juliet, Tybalt goes to pay Romeo back for what he sees as an insult to his family. He does this by challenging Romeo to a fight:
“Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries
That thou hast done me; therefore turn and draw.”
Romeo does not rise to the bait, as he does not want to hurt his wife’s cousin who he knows that she loves. Although Romeo does not rise to the bait Mercutio does and Mercutio and Tybalt fight. Romeo then tries to break up the fight and succeeds in getting between the two fighters. This doesn’t stop the fight though as Tybalt fatally wounds Mercutio from behind Romeo.
The death of Mercutio builds up Romeo’s anger and it is Romeo who kills Tybalt when he returns to brag about his killing of Mercutio. It is because Romeo killed Tybalt that Romeo was exiled so in a way, because Tybalt provoked the fight between himself and Mercutio, Tybalt is responsible for his own death and therefore the exile of Romeo.
The nurse is also partly responsible for the deaths at the end of the play. This is because it is the Nurse who cracks under the pressure and abandons Juliet at the crucial time; when she is threatened with expulsion from her family’s house if she does not marry Paris on Thursday. She thinks it is “best [Juliet] married with the County [as] he’s a lovely gentleman!” This betrayal of Juliet by the Nurse is very significant as it means that Juliet has less people who she can talk to about the problem and although you do not know whether the Nurse could have done anything to stop the plan that the Friar thought of she probably would have stayed with Juliet on her ‘death’ bed therefore being able to tell Romeo that Juliet was not really dead.
The Montagues and Benvolio are not really mentioned that much in the play. The Montagues especially are normally there during the scenes In the First Scene, The Montagues talked to Benvolio about what was wrong and they are probably only guilty of not paying enough attention to their son, and they may have been able to advise Romeo.
Benvolio also does not play a big part in the play. He was not aware of the marriage between Romeo and Juliet and therefore could not have given Romeo advice about what to do. He also does not stop the fatal fight between Romeo and Tybalt in which Romeo kills Tybalt. Benvolio blames his lack of action to stop the fight on Romeo who “had but newly entertained revenge, /And to ‘t they go like lightening, for, ere I/could draw to part them,”
Mercutio is a quick-tempered character who is one of Romeos greatest friends. He stands up for Romeo when Romeo does not want to fight Tybalt. Mercutio ends up being fatally stabbed while his friend Romeo tries to break up the fight. This is important as if Mercutio had not got involved in the fight then the fight between Romeo and Tybalt would not have happened, therefore Romeo would not have been banished so the marriage between Romeo and Juliet would have been safe.
In conclusion there are a lot of people who are at least partly to blame for the tragic ending at the end of the play. If there was a list with the most responsible for the deaths at the top and the least responsible I think it would look like this:
- Friar Lawrence
- Tybalt
- Nurse
- Romeo
- The Capulets
- Juliet
- Mercutio
- The Prince
- Benvolio
- The Montagues
Friar Lawrence is quite clearly the most responsible as it is he who thought of the plans, and never seemed to advise caution. Each of his plans caused the snowballing of disasters for Romeo and Juliet and by agreeing to the hasty ill-thoughtout out marriage he started the disastrous course of events which end so tragically. Tybalt is next because he caused the exile of Romeo, then the Nurse as if she had not have betrayed Juliet then she could have explained the situation to Romeo. The next four people are really equal in responsibility. The Prince is far down as he was only doing his job and he was actually being soft on Romeo. Benvolio and the Montagues are at the bottom as they did very little to cause the deaths and have very small parts in the play.
I think fate is also a very big part of the play. This is because there are mentions of fate all throughout the play going from the beginning in the prologue:
“star-crosses lovers”
The Friar particularly is an agent of fate. He helps the already planned story along to make sure it ends how it is meant to, with the end of the families feud. As the story progresses some of the characters seem to realise that they are all playing along to fates plans:
“I [Romeo] am fortunes fool”
Romeo also sees that he is being played by fate earlier on in the play:
“I fear, too early, for my mind misgives
Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars…
By some vile forfeit of untimely death:
But he hath the steerage of my course
Direct my sail.”
Romeo tries to defy fate near the end of the play by doing something, which he feels fate has not expected:
“Then I defy you, stars!”
The truth is that fate has planned all of this including Romeo rushing to Verona to kill himself just before Juliet wakes from her false death.
After Juliet wakes up and sees that Romeo has killed himself and the plan has not worked. The Friar then mentions, “A greater power than we can contradict/ Hath thwarted our intents.”
Now we see that it was fate that had planned the deaths of Romeo and Juliet so the feud between the two families would stop. Fate used the different characters to a different degree but its ultimate aim was the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. Its greatest agent was the Friar and however hard he had tried he could never have stopped the ending of the play.
So Friar Lawrence is mostly to blame for the deaths but his actions and the actions of the rest of the characters were governed by one force, the force of fate.
Tim Greenfield
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