To What Extent is Friar Lawrence Responsible For the deaths of Romeo and Juliet?

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Tahir Sheikh-noor 11v        Aveling Park

To What Extent is Friar Lawrence Responsible For the deaths of Romeo and Juliet?

Friar Lawrence plays a contradictive part throughout the entire play as he shows many differentials within his personality as he seems like quite a genuine person at the beginning of his role in the play as he makes a soliloquy about plants and flowers and he is out collecting herbs when we are first introduced to Friar Lawrence in Act 2 Scene 3. The soliloquy also goes into detail about remedies and healing powers “Poison hath residence, and medicine power” and from this it becomes clear that the Friar is a genuine, intelligent Friar and that he has a healing instinct. “Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, and vice sometime’s by action dignified. Within the infant rind of this weak flower poison hath residence, and medicine power” in this quotation the Friar has compared people to flowers, which exposes a lot of the Friars spiritual side.

This all changes when the Friar decides to unite Romeo and Juliet in marriage, he believes that this will also end the ongoing vendetta between their two families. He believe that he can play God by trying to change destiny but going ahead with the wedding proved a bad decision for the Friar but the phrase “These violent delights have violent ends” turns out to be a correct statement and one of the many hints of death and tragedy throughout the play. The Egotistical attitude of the Friar seems to have caused more grief than any kind of comfort but he develops another idea which now shows quite a selfish part of his personality as he now wants to extricate Juliet from this entire problem by giving her a drug that will make her sleep but at the same time make her seem dead. Now the Friar wants to save himself from this situation showing that there is also a very selfish, unforgiving side to Friar Lawrence.

When he tries to confess to the prince showing the positive, responsible side of his persona the terrible things he had done to eventually lead to the deaths of Romeo and Juliet he gets let off easily “We still have known thee for a holy man” but the Friars real punishment is that he has to live with the consequences of his actions for the rest of his life.

Friar Lawrence and Romeo have almost a father-son relationship, this is proven by the way that they speak to each other “Good morrow, father” and “Young son, it argues a distemper’d head” this language shows the positive nature of their relationship but it also shows the irresponsibility of the Friar as he has broken the stereotype of a regular Friar because he doesn’t always seem to speak to Romeo as a Friar but more as a friend. Friar Lawrence is seen as a confidant to Romeo because he knows a lot about Romeo and his feelings toward women even though he never actually seems to believe that Romeo is truly in love “Thy love did read by rote, that could spell” Friar Lawrence believes that Romeo knows the right things to say when he is in love but he has just learnt it by heart and says it all the time or when he thinks he is in love. “Young men’s love then lies not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes” this is not a statement you would expect a regular Friar to say. The Friar is the one to try and talk sense into Romeo e.g. when Romeo found out that he had been banished (Act 3 Scene 3) he reacted very badly as if it was as bad as death “But ‘banished’ to kill me? ‘Banished’!” Friar Lawrence was there to stop Romeo from doing anything stupid and try to calm him down, but later as Romeo took out his sword ready to slay himself the Friar then steps in to stop Romeo from committing suicide and with him being a Friar, working for the lord suicide is the ultimate sin so its his role to prevent this but if not for the father-son bond between them then Romeo may have killed himself. The Friar prevents Romeos death by questioning his manhood and trying to embarrass him “Hold thy desperate hand: Art thou a man? Thy form cries out thou art. Thy tears are womanish” here in the Friars speech he portrays himself much more in the way a good Friar should which shows he does have the qualities of a genuine Friar after all. After a long speech by the Friar, Romeo is finally persuaded not to commit suicide.

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This section really highlights the relationship between Romeo and Friar Lawrence and shows what an influence the Friar has on Romeo.

Its seems that Friar Lawrence believes that he has the power to alter the course of history as he believes he can end the ongoing vendetta between Romeo and Juliet’s families. This kind of egotistical attitude leads to the many irresponsible actions taken by Friar Lawrence, for example going ahead with the wedding of Romeo and Juliet proved to be one of the worst decisions made by the Friar. The Friar becomes quite paradox because he now starts trying ...

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