The friar is like Romeo’s father and best friend, as he always provides Romeo with advice and solutions to his problems. He gives Romeo this piece of advice when Romeo tells him he’s in love ‘be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift; Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.’ He is put under quite a lot of pressure by Romeo and Juliet and their love, he’s put into very awkward positions so awkward and hard to deal with that they’ve told him they’ll kill themselves, so you also feel sorry for the friar because he has to do what is right, and that can’t be good for everyone. For a religious man he would be on the ‘great chain of being’ and be rather high up because he is a religious man but some of the things he does in the play would surely move him down on the scale, and yet back in those days people did really fear God and had great respect for religious men like the friar. You can tell how the friar is a well educated man in the play as he speaks in verse; two types of verse in fact, he speaks in blank verse (which doesn’t rhyme as well) and rhyming verse (which means he speaks in rhyme.) He also speaks so that there is often ten words a line ‘That’s my good son. But where hast thou been then?’
Shakespeare gives the play a lot of themes, he explores the themes very well, there’s the theme of class, like the difference between the nurse and the friar and yet they share the same friendship with Romeo and Juliet. There’s also the theme of sorrow and regret as the friar regrets a lot of the decisions he’s made about marrying Romeo and Juliet. Another theme would be love, as this is expressed very well, as in the love Romeo and Juliet share with each other and with the friar and nurse. I would say that the main theme of the play is most likely rushing because all through the play the characters are speaking in rhyme to make everything seem more rushed. And near the end the friar says as he’s rushing through the grave yard ‘Saint Francis be my speed! How oft tonight have my old feet stumbled at graves!’ it looks as if he’ saying that he is tripping up on death’. This surely means that the message of the play would be don’t rush things.
Some of the scenes in the play would be quite hard to act out in a play because they’re quite complicated and hard and have to be changed slightly. Like when there’s a fight between Mercutio and Tybalt that would be hard to act out because it does involve a lot of movement and use of stage. There’s the famous balcony moment between Romeo and Juliet which would also be difficult to act out and perform. When they’re in the grave yard, and all of the people rush into the family tomb that would also be hard to act out they’d have to have a wall where you can only see it from front on to show some separation. The famous scene where Romeo and Juliet are having the famous conversation on the balcony that would also be very difficult, so one would have to think ahead quite a lot and in advance as to not mess up how the scene would look.
In the total of the play you do gather up many opinions as to who you think is to blame for Romeo and Juliet’s death. You end up asking many questions as to who you think is responsible. It’s odd though because at the start of the play itself it tells you that they die but not how so that also make’s you ask questions abruptly. As the play goes on when there’s fights and near death and death experiences you find yourself saying ‘no you can’t die’ ‘will they make it?’ so it does really get you well engaged into the play. There are moments also where you feel confused as to who you would blame in the play for many things, some things are rather shifty.
If I was to blame people for the deaths in order; leading up to the main ones I would say the prince would be number five because he threatened to do something about the fighting and didn’t. It would then be the families because they had a mini war between each other and can’t remember what it was actually about, so that caused problems. I would then say I’d blame the friar because he should have been the responsible adult and said no to marrying them but they put him in really awkward positions by telling him they were going to kill themselves which obviously makes him want to take action. I’d then say I would blame the nurse because she was always so arrogant and only wanted to see Juliet married, she didn’t care who to just as long as it happened before she died. She also used to wind Juliet up with very serious things, whenever she had news she wouldn’t tell her for a while to build up an unfair suspense on Juliet. The people I would hold responsible for the deaths would be Romeo and Juliet.
I would blame ‘the star crossed lovers’ because they knew that what they were doing was wrong but still ignored the fact because they wanted to be together. They also put enormous amounts of pressure on the Friar and the Nurse because they threatened to kill themselves and everything which therefore made them feel responsible for the two teenagers. They were also very selfish; they didn’t care much for anyone else it seemed to be all about them, but they paid the price for it. They also put their families through a lot of stress as well, and created a lot of innocent victims pay the price for what they did like Paris for example. The only crime he committed was loving and wanting to marry Juliet, he did nothing wrong but his life came to an end because of Romeo and Juliet. So really what happened to them was their fault, if they’d have taken advice from their friends and family then they’d probably of been fine.
I did really enjoy this play it got me thinking a lot, it kept me interested and wanting to read on, I think that sometimes it’s hard to understand what’s being said because its all in old English but apart from that I think its great. It is a perfect example of a tragic play. And I did enjoy studying a lot; it creates a lot of cliff hangers so I would highly recommend reading the play, or watching the films.
Aimee Vincent-Bunn.
