Juliet is the beloved of Romeo and plays a big role in the play. She is the daughter of Lord Capulet and the wife of Romeo, which her parents don’t know. When she wakes up after her faked death, she kills herself when she sees Romeo next to her dead. In my opinion, Capulet is the most to blame for her death because he organized the wedding with Paris against her will, causing her to take the potion. If Romeo hadn’t been banished from Verona, Romeo could have got the message quickly enough for him to know that Juliet isn’t dead. Without the feuding between the two families they could have told their parents about the marriage, but it wasn’t the case here, so the two star-crossed lovers had to die.
Mercutio was a special character in the play; he was one of the few people who could be freely between the 2 families but died at the start. He dies when Tybalt fights with Mercutio instead of Romeo. When Romeo interferes, Mercutio gets stabbed under the arm. Mercutio wouldn’t have died if Romeo had defended his honor and fought with Tybalt. If Mercutio hadn’t been provoked by Tybalt’s insults, then he wouldn’t have started insulting himself. When Mercutio dies, he swore of the 2 houses, ”A plague o’both your houses! They have made worm’s meat of me (Scene 3, Act 1, 102-103).
A kinsman of the prince called Paris plays a small role in the play. He was supposed to marry Juliet but then she faked her death. He dies when Romeo enters the graveyard to look for Juliet, he doesn’t want to leave when Romeo asks him to and they start to fight. Romeo kills Paris, this could have been abstained if Paris would have left the grave and if Capulet hadn’t decided that Paris is going to marry Juliet.
One of Lord Capulet’s sons is Tybalt; he hates the Montague’s and is willing to kill all of them. It is then that he wants to fight with Romeo. He doesn’t want to because Tybalt is his cousin, instead Mercutio fights with him and Mercutio gets killed. Romeo is ashamed and kills Tybalt, as a result he gets banished from Verona. Tybalt would have stayed alive if he hadn’t have started the fight between Mercutio and himself and simply left them alone. In my opinion I think that the hatred started from their parents and passed it on to their sons and daughters.
In the play, Lady Montague, Romeo’s mother, kills herself because of grief when she is told of the death of her son, Romeo. This could have been avoided if Friar Lawrence hadn’t given Juliet the sleeping potion. If Friar John had let Romeo know quickly about Juliet’s faked death, Romeo wouldn’t have reacted so desperately. She acted very rashly when she decided to kill herself because for grief. However, if the two families had not been feuding for the last centuries, Lady Montague would have survived.
As we have seen, every individual’s actions or lack of thinking the situation through before taking action leads to so many tragic deaths. As in all Shakespeare’s tragedies, the characters cannot escape their fate. Either some important information had not been delivered punctually or the characters are in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Laurence Kobrock
Grade 8a
