Next I will consider the role of Lord and Lady Capulet, the mother and father of Juliet. We know that a lot of the fighting could have been stopped if the two families could agree to disagree and just try and get along. “My sword I say! Old Montague is come!” shows they don’t like the Montagues. Lord and Lady Capulet had chosen a man called Paris to marry Juliet. They chose him not because he was well suited to Juliet, more that he was rich. This proves that they should have paid more attention to Juliet’s wishes. But she didn’t want to marry him because she was madly in love with Romeo. So she kept on trying to put the date of the wedding back, which Lord Capulet did not like. Lord Capulet is talking to Paris about the wedding. “Marry, my child, early…thee there a joyful bride.” This is Lord Capulet arranging the marriage of his daughter. When the play was written in 1595 it was the period of the Elizabethans, and in Elizabethan times we know that girls married at a young age. Lord Capulet treats Juliet like she is his property, which is typical of the period. When Juliet hears about this news she doesn’t like it and rebels. Lord Capulet hates it, and says a few harsh words; “I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.” But still Juliet refuses to agree with her farther so Lord Capulet just says, “get thee to church a Thursday or never look me in the face!” and “an you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets” they are quite harsh words to say to his daughter. Her mother then goes on to say how she will disown her, “Do as wilt, for I have done with thee.” All of the quotes from the Capulets are all being harsh on Juliet, and should have treated her more like a human not like a ‘thing’ that they owned.
Also the other main family in this is the montagues. Which were Romeos family. We know that in the play the Montagues do not say much. But like the Capulets they could have tried to be more willing to listen to Romeo. Also they play a big part in keeping the Feud going between the Capulets and them selves. A quote to support this is “thou villain Capulet!” that is Lord Montague explaining his hatred for the Capulets. Both of the families could be jointly to blame because if they didn’t keep the feud going Romeo and Juliet would not have found it necessary to do everything away from their parents, and if they could be open with their relationship they would not have needed to try and escape.
A character who could be to blame for his own death is Romeo. Romeo at the start of the play was madly in love with Rosaline, but his love for her was not sincere. Evidence to suggest this is when he has met Juliet and was talking to the Friar Lawrence. “With Rosaline, my ghostly father no, I have forgotten that name,” Romeo found it hard to handle when he found he couldn’t get her. So his best friend Mercutio just about managed to get him to attend the Capulets masked ball to try and cheer him up, and find a new woman. When he attends he lays eyes on Juliet and instantly falls in love. But before he had a chance to talk to her, Paris took her hand to dance. While they were dancing Romeo spoke to the nurse and found out that she was a Capulet. That is when he says, “Is she a Capulet? O dear my life is my foe’s debt!” When he got a chance to talk to her he talks from the heart, as where he talked about Rosaline in poetry and did not seem sincere. When he declares his love for Juliet and moves things too quickly, so this might be Romeo being too hasty and Juliet realises this when she says “ it is too rash, too unadvis’d, too sudden” so they are star crossed lovers and blind with this love for each other. The next day Romeo tells the Nurse that he has arranged with Friar Lawrence the wedding, and could she tell Juliet the news, “Bid her devise some…be shrived and married.”
After they get married Romeo goes to find Mercutio. When he finds him he is with Tybalt just about to have a fight. Tybalt then turns his attention to Romeo, but Romeo refuses to fight because Tybalt is now his cousin in law. So when Tybalt kills mercutio, Romeo couldn’t stand it any more and he kills Tybalt and then he says, “O, I am fortunes fool!” after he killed Tybalt, it is ominous. Because there is a big influence of fate in the story, it hints that something bad will happen. He says this because he kills Tybalt that leads him being banished from Verona to a place called Mantua. But if the Prince didn’t banish Romeo from Verona Juliet wouldn’t have needed to take the potion which in the end is the cause of the tragedy. When they arrange to run away, there plan was to fake that Juliet was dead with a sleeping potion, then she would go into the Capulets tomb and when she wakes up in the tomb she would run away with Romeo (in theory) Juliet took the potion and was declared dead and was put into the tomb, but Romeo did not hear of this. So when he heard he went straight to get some poison to kill him self if it was true. When he got there and thought that she was dead and as he took it Juliet woke up from her long sleep and watched him die. Because he took it there was no way she could have saved him. When he was taking the potion he said, “here is to my true love! (He drinks) O true apothecary, thy drugs are quick!”
His true love Juliet is another character that contributed to her death. Through out the play Juliet is the one that develops the most. As she starts innocent, and ends up disobeying her mother and fathers wishes. Juliet was all but set to marry Paris until Romeo came in to the picture, and then she was determined to change her mind. In the play when Romeo and Juliet are talking about getting married, Juliet tells Romeo “It is too rash, too unadvis’d, too sudden” which is wise of Juliet, thinking that they don’t want to rush in to things. This is also linked to the fast pace which the play has, and if they didn’t rush into things that might have gone onto live a bit longer. When she tells the nurse of her new love, she says to the nurse “ My only love sprung from my only hate!” This is her saying that her only love (Romeo) came from her only hate (the Capulets,) and because her family still think that she is going to marry Paris her father arranges the marriage without telling Juliet of what he has done. Juliet gets told the news by her father and tries to get out of it, and she couldn’t tell her family that she is going to marry Romeo or else there would be hell to pay. In the end her father tells her that if she doesn’t go along with it, he will disown her. And when she comes to the nurse for comfort, “ comfort me, counsel me” the nurse for some reason, goes on the side of the Lord and Lady by saying “ I think it best you married with the County” or in other words stick with your families choice. That hits Juliet hard and she replies to the nurse “ Speakest thou from thy heart?” and the nurse replies “ and from my soul too. Else beshrew them both.” But you could say that she deserved all of his because she did disobey her parents after all. But when the nurse told her of Romeo’s plans she went there and got married to Romeo. When Romeo got banished to Mantua for killing Tybalt, she and Romeo planed the escape. So Juliet got the sleeping potion from Friar Lawrence. She took the potion and was declared ‘dead’ and put into the Capulet tomb. But Romeo didn’t receive the letters that were sent, and found Juliet what he thought was dead and killed him self with poison. But when Juliet woke up all she could do is watch him die. Then she made the decision that she was going to kill her self so she took Romeos sword and killed her self while saying “O happy dagger. This is my sheath. There rust, and let me die.” This could be classed as them both being to hasty and jumping into things, like there marriage.
Another character who could be to blame is the Nurse. She acts as a substitute mother to Juliet, and her course mind is opposite to Juliet’s innocent mind. The nurse plays a big part in the relationship between Romeo and Juliet. The first thing that the nurse does to help them out is that she meets up with Romeo to arrange the marriage. She gives Romeo her word that Juliet will be there by saying “Now God in heaven bless thee. This afternoon Sir? Well she shall be there.” She then went back to the Capulet mansion to tell Juliet the news “Then hie you hence to Friar Lawrence’s cell. There stays a husband to make thee a wife.” But later she goes against Juliet marrying Romeo by saying “O, he’s a lovely gentlemen. Romeos a dishclout to him.” The nurse even helps Romeo and Juliet spend a night together, knowing it is against the wishes of the Lord and Lady. The nurse can be to blame for the tragedy in many ways because she helped them do a lot of things that they couldn’t have done without her. Also many things might not have happened if she didn’t encourage other things like she should not have encouraged Juliet to disobey her parents by staying with Romeo, and she should have not arranged the marriage for them. Finally the last character to look at is Friar Lawrence. The friar is a monk, and like the nurse with Juliet he is like a father to Romeo. He gives wise advise that just goes straight over the head of Romeo, “Wisely and slow, they stumble that run fast.” But he agrees to marry Romeo and Juliet besides knowing what would happen if the two families found out. Later no he marries the two. When they made the plan to escape the Friar helps out lots by telling Juliet what to do “Go home, be merry, give consent.” Consent means tell your father that you will marry Paris. He also gives here a sleeping potion, which will last for 42 hours. He also agrees to keep Romeo informed “Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift.” He will send letters to Romeo, so he will come here. So the plan starts and Juliet takes the potion and appears to be dead, so she is placed in the Capulet tomb. Meanwhile a letter is send to Romeo to tell him the plan. The letter does not get to Romeo in time so that is when he goes to get the potion. When he arrives at the tomb he thinks she is dead and he drinks the potion the Juliet awakens and realises what Romeo has done and then kills her self. So the Friar might have done most of the things to contribute to the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. To start off with he shouldn’t have married them, he shouldn’t have give Juliet the potion and finally he should have made positively sure that the messages reached Romeo.
There were lots of factors that need to be considered when trying to find out the cause of the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. But having looked at all of the characters in the play, the person most responsible for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet is The Montagues and The Capulets, because if they didn’t have this feud there would be no reason why Romeo and Juliet should go behind their parents backs.
